Top Takeaways from the 2017 Healthcare Informatics 100
Every year when Healthcare Informatics officially releases its rankings of the top 100 vendors by revenue in the healthcare IT market, I like to give the list a few days to breathe, review it, and then take a deeper dive into the nuances of it that may not be so apparent at first glance.
Indeed, there is a lot that goes into this list—which has been published for more than 20 years—especially in the last two years when we have added lots of enhanced features to make for a better viewing experience, digitally. For instance, once again vendors were asked to estimate the percentage of revenue earned in all of their product segments. Coming later this month we will showcase the top five vendors by revenue in each of the seven breakout product categories. What’s more, the Healthcare Informatics 100 complete vendor listings also include: year-over-year revenue comparison charts; key thought leader executives; markets served; major revenue sources; M&A activity from the previous year; and brief descriptions of the companies.
Before I get into my takeaways from the 2017 list—which is of course based on 2016 vendor financial data—I’d like to point readers to a few pieces of content that surrounds The 100. Last week, we released our two Most Interesting Vendor stories on Epic and Optum, obviously both very high health IT revenue earners, and who were picked as “most interesting” by our editorial staff for a variety of reasons. I highly encourage you to read both of these vendor profiles. Also, strategic and financial advisory firm ST Advisors, which helped us compile the list, penned a terrific piece on all of the M&A activity that took place last year in the health IT market. With that, let’s get to the odds and ends of the 2017 Healthcare Informatics 100.
The top 10 holds steady—The 2016 list and the 2017 list had the same four companies at the top, in the same order—Optum, Cerner, Cognizant and McKesson. While there was some moving around in the bottom half of the first 10 vendors, one company that jumped 12 spots, from #21 to #9 was Leidos, reporting an HIT revenue of nearly $1.7 billion, up significantly from $593 million the year prior. In fact, Leidos was named one of our Most Interesting Vendors in 2016 after snaring the Defense Department’s EHR (electronic health record) implementation contract, in partnership with Cerner, the year prior. But the main takeaway here is that the big health IT players are continuing to prove their worth at the top of the market.
Optum #1 yet again—Two years ago, our team changed the submission process for The 100, allowing for health IT revenue that was derived from the payer market to be counted towards the total. What that did is allow Optum, the Eden Prairie, Minn.-based consulting and analytics division of the country's largest health insurer, UnitedHealth Group, to turbocharge to the top of the list. This is the third consecutive year in which Optum topped the list, reporting a health IT revenue of $7.3 billion in 2016. What are the keys to Optum continuing to grow and prosper within The 100? For that answer you’ll have to read my just-published vender profile of them!
Risers and fallers—Who were the vendors that made the biggest jumps and the ones that witnessed the steepest drops? Not counting any new companies to this year’s list (more on those below), the biggest list climbers year-over-year were: Harris Healthcare, which moved up 29 spots (#87 to #58); Sharecare, moving up 20 spots (#73 to #53); Orion, moving up 19 spots (#74 to #55); Softheon, moving up 16 spots (#34 to #18); and the aforementioned Leidos, which moved up 12 spots (#21 to #9).
As far as the companies who fell the most on the list from 2016 to 2017, Medecision fell 12 spots; NEC Corporation of America dropped 11 spots; and MEDHOST and Brightree both fell nine slots on the list. It should be noted that just because a vendor ranked lower on this year’s list than last year’s, that doesn’t necessarily mean that their revenue fell. For example, Medecision was the biggest faller this year, but their revenue actually held fairly steady year-over-year. This is due to the companies on the 2017 edition having higher revenues overall. Indeed, the 100th company on the 2016 list had a revenue of $55 million; this year’s final company had a revenue of $65 million.
Welcome, new participants!—We always welcome new health IT firms to the list, as it adds a layer of freshness to lists’ prior. This year, we saw 15 new companies make The 100, ranging from the 100th company all the way up to the 27th. This is up from eight new vendor firms on last year’s list. There are various reasons as to why a company might be new to the list, such as not submitting their data in prior years, not having a high enough revenue in prior years, or perhaps being a new company that didn’t exist in prior years. Whatever the reason, we’re happy to have them!
Oldest and youngest—While not every single company on this year’s list denoted which year they were founded, plenty did. And once again, Elseiver, a 127-year-old company, and Philips, a 126-year-old company, easily take the case for oldest companies on the list. Other than those two, Wipro Limited, established in 1945 is the next oldest. There were plenty of newly-founded companies in this year’s edition, with more than one-fourth being established in 2000 or later. Cotiviti, one of the 15 new companies this year that were mentioned above, is the newest of the new, founded in 2014.
Health IT regional hubs—I also always like to look at which regions of the U.S. are the biggest hotbeds for healthcare technology. While there is a variety of geographic representation, a few states stuck out as having the most vendors on this year’s list: Massachusetts (8), California (8), Georgia (8), Texas (7), Florida (7), and Tennessee (6). Combined, these six states represent almost half the 2017 list.
Have any other comments or takeaways on The 100 list? Feel free to tweet at @RajivLeventhal or comment in the section below. And be sure to check out our product breakout lists later this month!
