KLAS: Business intelligence tidal wave a'coming

A tidal wave of healthcare business intelligence (BI) purchases is anticipated in the next three years, according to a new report from market researcher KLAS. Energy around healthcare BI is increasing at a frenetic pace with 52 percent of providers looking to buy (33 percent) or replace (19 percent) their BI tools in the next three years.

With data collected between January and March representing 137 unique healthcare provider respondents, KLAS also found 83 percent have an enterprise go-forward BI strategy, up from 2011.

Providers have adopted a forward-thinking approach to BI. “Not only do they want to use their new BI tool for clinical and financial data, but they are also seeking out tools that have predictive analytics, data modeling, forecasting, trending and other functionality that will help them get through various regulatory, health information exchange and accountable care organization [ACO] challenges that lie ahead,” the report stated.

However, some are planning to use a "hybrid strategy" of multiple BI vendors to fulfill their organization's needs. "Seventeen percent of the customers we spoke with said that they are using multiple BI solutions to meet various departmental and reporting needs," stated the Orem, Utah-based researcher. "And that number is likely to grow."

Overall, McKesson has received the most provider considerations, with IBM, Oracle, QlikTech and SAP rounding out the top five alphabetically. Besides McKesson, a number of other core EMR vendors gained a noticeable portion of the mindshare. Providers interviewed for this research identified a total of 37 vendors they were considering for BI products.

According to the report, bedsize matters. Sites with more than 1,000 beds considered Oracle, SAP and IBM. The smaller end of the market (fewer than 500 beds) looked at Cerner on the clinical side and Lawson on the financial side; Dimensional Insight, McKesson and QlikTech garnered attention from those pursuing an enterprise or hybrid approach.

About 65 percent of providers plan on going down the BI road alone without the use of consultants for BI use cases. The top five “wish list” for healthcare-specific functionality includes:

• Enterprise healthcare BI: 27 percent
• Predictive analytics: 22 percent
• ACO analytics: 16 percent
• Healthcare data integration/data warehousing: 9 percent
• Population health; 9 percent

“Vendors continue to try to map their solution’s functionality with providers’ needs,” the report concluded. “Despite the inherent complexity of BI, it may be only a matter of time before first one and then another vendor is truly able to offer what healthcare executives want most.”