Cardiology IT field marked by frustration
Nearly one in three cardiology IT users is thinking about replacing the system, according to KLAS.
The Orem, Utah-based research firm issued its most recent report on the market in June 2010. According to KLAS Research Director Ben Brown, author of the report, not much has changed since then – except, perhaps, the frustration among users continues to mount.
The problem?
There are several, says Brown.
“There are all kinds of small nuances that, where radiology has been around in the PACS and RIS space for about 10, 12, 14 years, cardiology has just been around for six, seven, eight years from the technology’s perspective in the hospital,” he said. “So they just haven’t been through all the trials, knee scrapes and falling off the bike that the radiology IT environment has gone through.”
What’s lacking, Brown says, is structured data and strong workflow and reporting tools.
The area with the most room for improvement is around pediatrics.
“There isn’t really a full tool set for all pediatric cardiovascular needs from an IT standpoint,” he said.
A September 2010 report on the cardiology IT market from Burlington, Vt.-based CapSite found that fewer than 20 percent of recent cardiology IT deals were part of a larger electronic health record system decision. The study also revealed that ease of use and integration were top of mind among users.
“It was very clear that ease of use and integration capabilities are by far the two most important criteria healthcare provider organizations are looking for when evaluating cardiology IT solutions today,” said Michael Lee, CapSite’s research director.
Brown seconds that finding.
“We know, just from looking at buying trends, integration is a key driver for purchasing. So having lots of stand-alone systems is becoming less and less popular,” he said. “Where an integrated platform can be leveraged, usually it wins out over feature/functions in the long term, and people are willing to wait for the technology to get there.”
The high replacement rate in this market is a sign of poor performance in the space, says Brown.
“Client satisfaction continues to trend downward industry-wide as vendors fail to deliver on integration, functionality and service expectations,” he said.
Ben Brown, research director at KLAS, makes the following observations about the cardiology IT market:
• We will continue to see further integration of cardiovascular information technology and PACS systems with the hospital EMR. More EMR vendors and cardiology IT vendors will be working together to interface those systems.
• We will continue to see the technology mature in the areas of workflow and clinical procedural documentation and reporting, including tools that help physicians and clinicians quickly create patient reports in a structured data format.
• We will see most of the vendors start to develop more tools around pediatrics. That’s been identified as the big gap in the portfolio.
• The level of frustration is high enough that the replacement market is still very active – even as adoption continues.
