To help small healthcare organizations make more informed decisions about their electronic health records and patient accounting systems, KLAS researchers interviewed small hospitals (250 beds). or less) about their experience, finding a significant difference from similar reports in recent years.
WHY IT IMPORTANT
Small hospitals are changing EHRs and patient accounting systems at a faster rate than their large hospital counterparts, according to the new Small Hospital Patient Accounting report from KLAS Arch Collaborative.
KLAS researchers examined customer satisfaction across the company’s customer experience pillars, including relationship, product, culture, operations, and values.
The researchers asked about relationships, product functions, culture, and values. Providers – Epic, Meditech, CPSI and Oracle Health – are diverse in these categories.
The report also contained data on Medhost and athenahealth scores, but the KLAS researchers said the data was too limited and separated their scores for each metric.
However, the activity metrics proved to be the most painful point for all vendors, according to the report summary.
From limited information in training materials and understaffed resources to accessible training tools that provide limited guidance, KLAS researchers found small hospital respondents are experiencing Difficulty with EHR implementation and need more support.
Meditech has the highest score (81.7%) on the performance index, which aggregates customer ratings for training quality, implementation quality, and ease of use, and Oracle Health has the lowest score (58%). ).
Meditech has the highest scores for relationships, values, and culture while Epic has the highest scores for product functionality.
While the scores of all providers across all metrics never fell below 49%, Oracle Health consistently received the lowest scores of the four major providers whose customers were reviewed in the review. study and that is reflected in the overall performance score.
Despite the limited data, Medhost has seen an improvement – its activity score is up 10 points year over year.
“The vendor has improved the ease of use and integration of the product, although initial and ongoing training remains a hit,” the researchers said.
Meanwhile, athenahealth showed an overall drop in performance from 2020 to 2022, according to a small number of customers who responded to KLAS.
“Small hospitals using athenahealth (limited data) report severe lack of training and want the provider to provide training tailored to the inpatient market,” the researchers said. “.
TREND TO BIGGER WOMAN
Small hospitals began turning to larger technology companies more than 10 years ago with demand for healthcare IT outstripping the capacity of most market vendors.
Just five years ago, rural hospitals needed simplified EHRs to stay afloat, but the uncertainty and pressures of COVID-19 have forced many hospitals to close. They rely on federal funding to continue operating.
Companies like Cerner, now Oracle Health, have innovated with the cloud and other technologies to meet small hospital EHR needs and budgets.
But even with a lot of attention going to mid- to large-scale healthcare systems, practice management platforms don’t always meet customer needs, according to previous research. of KLAS published in December.
ON PROFILE
“Small hospitals are changing [electronic medical records] and patient accounting systems at a higher rate than their major hospital counterparts,” the KLAS researchers said in a summary of the report.
“While many providers offer viable clinical systems, there are significant differences in customer experience with patient accounting that small hospitals should not ignore.”
Andrea Fox is the senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Email: [email protected]
Healthcare IT News is a publication of HIMSS Media.
