Overall provider satisfaction with HIE solutions has dropped an average of 8 percent since last year as provider demands have outpaced vendor delivery, according to a new report from research firm KLAS.

"What is surprising is that despite the millions of dollars HIE vendors invested to add needed functionality, only about half of them are seeing their provider satisfaction scores improve," said report author Mark Allphin, in a news release. "Payment reform and the future of accountable care continue to keep many vendors struggling to keep up with provider demands."

For the report HIE 2014: Revisiting Great Expectations, KLAS interviewed 219 HIE providers, both public and private. Providers gave feedback on three main areas: reliability, relevance and transformation. The HIE products compared are from Allscripts, Cerner, eClinicalWorks, Epic, ICA, InterSystems, Medicity, NextGen, Optum (Axolotl), Orion Health, RelayHealth and Siemens.

[See also: Vendors missing boat on HIE needs.]

Cambridge, Mass.-based InterSystems was so pleased with the outcomes of the KLAS report and the comments from its customers that the company issued a news release highlighting how its HIE product HealthShare fared in the study and listing customer comments.

"HealthShare was the only product for which 100 percent of customers surveyed said HealthShare is both a 'part of their long-term plans,' and they 'would buy this again,'" Intersystems executives stated in the news release. "According to preliminary data from the report, InterSystems HealthShare received an overall early data score of 86.6, indicating strength in both 'relevance' and 'reliability.'"

The KLAS report noted, "Initially used by public HIEs, InterSystems HealthShare builds on its historical strength in interface engines (Ensemble) and databases (Caché), as well as on its international experience."

{See also: CommonWell names 3 biggest HIE hurdles.]

On the topic of vendor reliability, KLAS added, "InterSystems is described as a customer-centric partner, but the power and flexibility of the technology is the premier attraction."

"KLAS rankings are highly trusted because they are based on surveys of healthcare providers, not health IT vendors," said Paul Grabscheid, InterSystems vice president of strategic planning. "We are honored to receive this outstanding score in HIE technology from our clients, and we look forward to further serving their HIE needs with a health informatics platform that enables strategic interoperability and analytics for action. With the continued rapid growth of HealthShare, we anticipate even more customers participating in KLAS interviews this year, so that we can move from the 'preliminary data' to the 'fully ranked' category."

KLAS defines HIE as at least two healthcare provider organizations actively exchanging patient data and other information (unidirectionally or bidirectionally). Information must be shared between separate organizations. HIEs that are not yet actively exchanging data are not counted as live for the purposes of this study.