The anesthesia information system (AIS) market is small and immature, but early adopters are seeing benefits, including better patient care, a reasonable return on investment and even decreased liability, according to KLAS.

In "The Growing Market for Anesthesia Software: Liability, Integration and the Benefits of Adoption," KLAS interviewed 100 organizations that use AIS, representing an estimated 75 percent of those doing anesthesia documentation in the United States.

Almost universally, customers reported holes in functionality when using reporting and integration tools. However, every product KLAS measured generally earned high marks for ease of use and frequently saw strong adoption within the anesthesia department.

Among the four products rated in the report, GE Centricity Perioperative Anesthesia earned the highest rating with a score of 78 out of 100. That was followed by Philips CompuRecord, Picis Anesthesia Manager and Draeger Medical Innovian Anesthesia. The report also highlights early data on AIS products from Cerner, DocuSys, McKesson and Merge.

"Over the past several years, many anesthesiologists have been hesitant to adopt AIS software because of concerns that electronic tracking and documentation without appropriate context could create greater liability," said Jason Hess, KLAS' general manager of clinical research and author of the AIS report. "Yet early adopters are reporting exactly the opposite, suggesting that AIS products actually protect anesthesiologists, specifically against spurious lawsuits."

Despite the benefits of adoption, the KLAS report notes that AIS functionality is still weak in some key areas, most notably integration with surgery management systems. In principle, integration can eliminate double entries and improve the accuracy of patient records, but few vendors offer a viable solution.

Best-of-breed vendors who sell patient monitoring equipment, such as Philips and Draeger, have few customers integrating to their surgery management solutions. Picis and GE customers typically have interfaces, but customers report the interfaces are often difficult to implement and maintain. Cerner and SIS, which are still growing in market share and have too few sites to be fully rated in the KLAS study, offer the only truly integrated surgery management/anesthesia solutions.