When it comes to enterprise scheduling technology, healthcare providers favor integration with their electronic health record system over best-of-breed systems that offer more functionality, a new report from research firm KLAS shows.

The researchers say the trend is in line with what they’ve observed across healthcare markets.

Best-of-breed vendors Unibased (USA) and SCI Solutions average highest customer satisfaction, KLAS notes. However, Cerner, Epic and Siemens customers choose their EMR vendors for integrated revenue cycle/clinical suites.

[See also: KLAS names top 20 software and service vendors.]

For the report, Enterprise Scheduling: Best-of-Breeds and Shifting Provider Strategies, KLAS asked vendors to submit a list of their top five central scheduling clients. By interviewing these clients, KLAS determined that best-of breed solutions average the highest customer satisfaction, but the integrated scheduling approach is more popular long-term.

"Best-of-breed vendors Unibased (USA) and SCI Solutions differentiate themselves from enterprise vendors in service, integrated patient-access processing, and functionality, such as procedure logic and Web-based scheduling," said Paul Pitcher, KLAS research director and author of the report. "However, while USA has maintained the top spot for eight years running, it also has the highest percentage of respondents indicating that the solution isn't part of their long-term plans. SCI is not far behind, revealing that many providers plan to move away from the best-of-breed approach, despite their reported success with these vendors."

The trend is driven primarily by pressure to not only meet Stage 1 meaningful use criteria, but also to prepare for the undefined criteria for Stages 2 and 3, Pitcher said.

"Increasing numbers of providers are heading towards integrated EMR and patient account solutions, such as those offered by Siemens, Epic and Cerner," he said. "Even interfaced enterprise solutions QuadraMed and McKesson are vulnerable to replacement if they can't prove seamless integration between their lineup of solutions. As the EMR is replaced, so is the scheduling solution."

[See also: Hospitals use document management tools to transition to EMRs.]

Unibased took the top slot with a score of 90.8 out of 100, followed by Epic (89.8) and SCI Solutions (89.1).The report also highlights Cerner, McKesson and QuadraMed scheduling solutions.