Analytics vendor solutions have matured; however, vendors are struggling to exploit new sources of data in a rapidly transforming industry, according to the latest report from Chilmark Research. The report, 2017 Healthcare Analytics Market Trends Report, assess critical changes in vendor solutions and how well they map to provider needs. Chilmark finds that analytics solutions and care management applications are more tightly linked now and show promise for moving analytics-derived insights closer to the point of care. Analytics applications are also becoming more user friendly, representing an opportunity for differentiation previously identified in the 2016 edition of the report.
Key Findings
What remains the most important driver underlying the strong growth in data analytics is the move to alternative payment models, commonly referred to as value-based reimbursement (VBR). Chilmark finds that future financial success in the VBR realm requires healthcare organizations (HCOs) to effectively manage risks, utilization and costs while concurrently improving quality and optimizing outcomes.
Today, however, HCOs still straddle the different payment regimes of fee-for-service (FFS) and VBR. Analytics solutions are currently focusing on helping HCOs to maximize at-risk revenue (hitting quality targets) and still leverage traditional FFS reimbursements (closing care gaps). A secondary objective is to help HCOs reduce medical costs (unwarranted variability) and unnecessary utilization (readmissions reduction and low-acuity, non-emergent utilization).
The latest Chilmark report provides an in-depth profile on 17 leading analytics vendors in the market today. All solutions profiled have the capability to co-mingle claims and clinical data. While Chilmark noted last year that EHR vendors are well positioned to incorporate analytics into their EHR solutions, vendors of all types have promising analytics solutions both in terms of product vision and capabilities. The report also includes major changes in vendor solutions compared to those from last year’s report.
“Vendors still struggle to present information in a way that would cause providers to act and best use these emerging technologies and the insights they provide.” Both providers and analytics solutions vendors would benefit from the report to not only evaluate different solutions options but also for the report’s clear connections between analytics insights and opportunities for reducing utilization and improving health and revenue outcomes,” said Chilmark Analyst and report author Brian Murphy in a statement.