Responding to the long and challenging COVID-19 pandemic has certainly tested the healthcare IT and services communities. Which vendors have truly been partners, and which have fallen short in their response? Who showed they are up to the challenge of working through inevitable future crises? A new report from the Utah-based KLAS Research—the second in the firm’s series on the topic—analyzes the market and surveys customers on how their vendor partners are supporting them.
In the spring of 2020, KLAS began collecting provider organizations’ feedback on the response of their software vendors and services firms to the COVID-19 pandemic and how well these companies supported customers throughout the crisis.
The data in this report (an update to the early look KLAS published in July 2020) was collected from April 1, 2020, to December 31, 2020, and includes ratings from 6,300 in-depth interviews with providers and IT professionals at healthcare organizations. In part one of the series, of the 58 measured vendors in that report, 79 percent were rated higher for their COVID-19 response than for overall customer satisfaction.
Overall, the vendor community has responded well to the COVID-19 crisis, as 75 percent of customer ratings for the question “On a scale of 1.0–9.0, how well has your vendor supported you through the COVID-19 crisis?” are an 8.0 or higher. And among large vendors—defined in this report as having at least 15 ratings for their COVID-19 response in two or more measured market segments—eight are rated 8.0 or higher.
Specific vendors called out in the report include Nuance (8.3) and Epic (8.2) at the top of customers’ COVID-19 response ratings. According to customer feedback, Nuance was ready in a variety of ways to help customers, from supporting a mobile, work-from-home workforce, to offering some customers free licenses to meet surge needs. Nuance’s quality management customers rated their vendor a perfect 9.0 (based on limited data), citing their excellent work quickly adding COVID-19 quality measures.
Meanwhile, Epic customers reported a myriad of ways in which the vendor has supported them throughout the crisis. Repeatedly, customers said that when they were struggling, Epic emphasized meeting critical needs over cost and contracting. Many software upgrades were quickly released to meet a plethora of customer requests.
Other large software vendors that received scores above 8.0 for their COVID-19 response include PerfectServe, Health Catalyst, 3M, GetWellNetwork, symplr (API Healthcare), and Meditech, according to the report.
Two large vendors are rated 7.0 or lower (out of 9.0) for their response to the crisis. Homecare Homebase customers said their vendor made efforts to support them but moved slower than they expected and needed. And while many Allscripts customers reported the vendor made significant efforts to support them through the crisis, customers using the Paragon platform or one of Allscripts’ ambulatory solutions are more likely to feel they have been working with thinly stretched resources or doing too much on their own, according to the report.
Among vendors that have not performed as well, customers nearly universally said their vendor made efforts but sometimes failed to follow through, communicate effectively, or deliver when clients needed help most.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of services firms have been quick and effective in their response to the COVID-19 crisis, often filling critical gaps in staffing, skills, and experience. Hundreds of interviewed provider organizations reported they have leaned heavily on their services partners to endure the crisis. Notably, Medix, Aquity Solutions, and Nordic are rated high for their response to COVID-19 across multiple services, according to KLAS.
