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[00:00:02] Welcome to HealthData Talks, where industry experts offer bite sized tips and trends for managing legacy data.
[00:00:11] Erik Johnson: Thanks for joining us today. I’m Eric Johnson, the VP of Marketing here at Harmony Healthcare IT. Today, I’m joined with Tyson Blower, Research Director for KLAS Research. And thanks for being here today, Tyson, so very excited to have you here.
[00:00:26] Tyson Blauer: Thanks for having me.
[00:00:27] Erik Johnson: Just to kick us off here, if you wouldn’t mind, tell us a little bit more about your background with KLAS. How long have you been there? And just a little bit more about your experience with the organization and your role.
[00:00:39] Tyson Blauer: Yeah, for sure. So, I have been with KLAS seven almost eight years now. So as you mentioned, I’m a research director, so I oversee our research around acuity, behavioral health, EHRs, and then a lot of things comprised of interoperability. So, you know, interface engines, CMS, interoperability tools. Also, data archiving kind of fits nicely in there with all the things that I’m watching. So, I’ve been doing that for a few years now and excited to talk about what we’ve been doing.
[00:01:06] Erik Johnson: Excellent. Maybe we can kind of just jump right in and talk about data archiving in general. And can you talk about the perspective of why this category was created originally? When you go back and maybe even date us a little bit, how long has the category been around? And ultimately, what was the need that was really that this category was trying to serve for providers?
[00:01:34] Tyson Blauer: Yeah. So, with any research that KLAS does, we are always trying to focus on what are those things that provider organizations are purchasing that are going to make an impact for them. And so, as we see organizations, particularly when they’re moving EHRs, we see often there’s a need where they are migrating data, but also there’s a lot of old historic data that they are saying, we need to hold on to this and keep it for compliance reasons, but it’s really expensive to keep your old source systems up and going. And so instead of having to pay the maintenance cost to do that, let’s archive that. And so where we got into this is provider organizations coming to us and saying, okay, we’re looking for an archive who can help us with this KLAS. Do you know anything? So that’s always our number one impetus to say, okay, we need to be doing research in and on this. So, we’ve been doing this, I want to say, north of six years that we’ve been doing this research for.
And so, yeah, this is really just trying to say what’s the difference between the different vendors who’s doing well for customers and what is it that makes them unique? And then how do we make sure that as provider organizations are shopping around, they can find one that’s going to best align with their needs?
[00:02:38] Erik Johnson: Tyson, how does this category also complement some of the other categories that you cover a bit as well, too? Can you talk about that?
[00:02:47] Tyson Blauer: Yeah, so with a lot of our research that we do, there’s overlap. Right. And so, as we talk about, you know, when an organization makes an acute EHR decision, they’re saying, okay, we are going, this is a big investment, we’re going to move a lot of different things. And so, they’re making that decision. There also is overlap with consulting firms and things that they’re trying to do there where they’re saying, hey, we need to help with our go live, we need to have help with our migration. And then the other part of migration is around data archiving. And there are just a lot of things that get tied in when an organization makes a switch, particularly with an EHR. But any major systems really, they’re saying, hey, we need to make sure we’re using these things. And then there’s just those questions of how do we make sure that we are staying compliant with that. I think that’s a major thing that drives a lot of healthcare organizations is you have to keep up with the various rules and regulations. And so, making sure you have that historic data is one of the keyways to do that. And so, we’re always trying to see what are those things provider organizations are trying to keep up with and how do we help with that.
[00:03:50] Erik Johnson: Yeah, so maybe we can kind of touch into some of those use cases, right, that your team sees? And maybe can you just go into a little bit more depth there where providers are expressing a need.
And I’m curious as to how potentially you’ve seen those needs change over time. So, you know, in the six years that you’ve been covering the space or KLAS has been covering the space in general, can you offer some comment on the priority use cases and what’s driving that need today?
[00:04:25] Tyson Blauer: Yeah, so it’s interesting, as we look at provider organizations when it comes to archiving, it has historically been driven by big pain. So, when it comes to old data, usually as an organization, you’re not wanting to focus a whole lot on it. You really say, okay, we’re going to do something with this data. When your legacy vendor is saying, hey, we’re going to charge an extra million dollars to keep this up, and you say, wow, that’s really painful and expensive and so historically we saw it a lot more, I would call it project based, where they said, okay, we have this specific thing we’re trying to do, let’s get that done and then we can be done with archiving. What we’re seeing a lot more of now is organizations and vendors as well looking to say, rather than treating this as a one off, where we have to get the provider organization staff oriented towards, how do you do an archive? What are all those things we have to do? What’s happening with this system? But they kept having projects come up on a repeat basis and it’s hard to have a one off project go really well when you’re new to doing this. And so, we’re seeing more and more organizations saying, we’ve got a lot of historic stuff, a lot. We’re continuing to acquire new organizations, new practices. We need someone who can be a more of a long-term partner and we want to have more of a team where this is just part of how we do business, where we say, okay, we have a process for when we archive things. So that way it’s more of an efficient, seamless way of doing things where you’re tied in well with that vendor rather than just trying to play whack a mole every once in a while and say, yep, let’s put out fires as they’re coming up. So we’re starting to see that happen more where I have organizations saying, hey, we know we’re making an EHR switch in two, three years and we’re already starting to look at archiving partners and who can help us with that.
[00:06:06] Erik Johnson: Very good. Yeah, so it’s really what is your archiving strategy? Right. And I think maybe what you’re talking about there is an evolution of saying, well, instead of perhaps reacting to a need immediately for every one of these, what is the holistic solution strategy for our data archiving and the importance of that and factoring into a much larger project, it sounds like, yeah, especially for.
[00:06:35] Tyson Blauer: Larger organizations, I think smaller practices, it’s still much more feasible for them to say, hey, we’ve just got one thing we’re going to do, but definitely those larger health systems and centers. Yeah, they’re having to have that more proactive and partner approach.
[00:06:49] Erik Johnson: Excellent.
As you compare the data archiving category within KLAS, I’m curious in terms of how does this category perform and what is unique about it relative to other types of categories. In some cases it’s a little unfair to compare, but yet when you are rating lots of technology, you can’t kind of not compare. And so, I’m curious on what you see are the nuances relative to archiving, perhaps how vendors approach this and what they do really well, that makes this category interesting, unique maybe perhaps to some of the other categories that you or KLAS covers.
[00:07:34] Tyson Blauer: Yeah, this actually is an interesting space when you look at comparisons, because we rate it as a software technology to say, hey, you know, what’s going on with the product? And so, we ask about things around the implementation and the training, but also the ease of use and how well the functionality of the product meets needs and things like that. But the way that this segment scores is actually a lot more similar to professional services that we measure, where usually in professional services, if you’re not scoring at low 90, you’re not doing very well. And that’s really how archiving has happened, is scoring where most vendors who are doing a good job are scoring at around a 90, which is really high in terms of software categories. We really don’t see a whole lot of software categories that score that highly, but a lot of that satisfaction is driven by that initial implementation. Because you think about it, this is, again, old data. You got to make sure that’s implemented well, and then once it’s done, I’m done with that piece, maybe I’ll check it every, still look at that data, but I use that less and less with time. So that initial project, that initial implementation has a big impact, even though there is that software still involved and they’re still using on an ongoing basis. So, it is kind of interesting for us to watch that and see the, the crossroads between the software and services, the way that we like to break things out. It’s not as clean as we like to have it be.
[00:08:53] Erik Johnson: Yeah. Understand. Excellent. Thank you.
So KLAS released a new report, so 2024 Data Archiving Report. Congratulations on that.
Tell us a little bit about why the timing for this report. Now, if you don’t mind, please.
[00:09:12] Tyson Blauer: Yeah, so this report was kind of a step for us to start getting deeper insights on the different players in the spaces. So, wanting to look at more the details of the projects that they’re doing. So how big are the archives are doing? What are the types of applications that they’re archiving? What are the types of customers that they’re working with? Because when a provider organization comes to us, they say, okay, KLAS, who can help us with what we’re trying to do? Well, there’s a lot of details in that. Are you a large organization? Are you doing more inpatient things, more ambulatory things? Is it financial? Is it clinical? Is it a lot of applications? Is it a small number of applications? Is budget the biggest thing you’re worried about? Are you worried about expertise? Do you want to have reference only archive, or do you want to have something that you can be able to actively work in? There’s a lot of parts and pieces and things to look into. So this report was kind of our first crack to get into some of that deeper insight, to unpack that a little bit more and just show the market based on who you are, based on the project you’re trying to do. Here’s where vendors have the most expertise in the data that we’ve been able to validate, to show they do a lot of this, they do some of this, they do none of that. Just to provide a little bit more.
[00:10:19] Erik Johnson: Of that context, how is this type of report similar or different than other reports that maybe the team has done around data archiving or other reports? Just in general curious, what makes this one similar or different?
[00:10:37] Tyson Blauer: Yeah. So, similarities are going to be with any KLAS data. We’re always asking customers about their satisfaction with their archive because that is an important thing. So, we still have that data in there. So that standard survey that we use continues to be one of the main ways that we show in that data. But we asked some additional questions as well to kind of get some of those additional insights that I was mentioning earlier. Basically trying to pair those up to say, okay, they fit your profile, but also how well do they perform? Are they doing a good job or do they fit the profile? And they perform subpar because there are some vendors who score lower. And so just, we’re really trying to make sure we can pair those up for organizations so they can say, yes, here’s that historic KLAS data. Looking at vendor performance is important because we want to make sure that someone lives up with a solution that they will be happy with. But at the end of the day, you also need to make sure that that vendor works, fits the profile of what it is you’re looking for. Are you saying, hey, we want to have a larger, more established vendor, maybe there’s more cost, do you want a smaller, more nimble vendor, but there’s a little bit of risk in the long term viability. All those things. We don’t want to say it’s good or bad. We just want to say, here’s what the data is, and let organizations make their own decision.
[00:11:53] Erik Johnson: Absolutely.
This report replaces a report that came out, I think, about two years ago. Right. And so I’m curious on what were maybe the top couple of things. Right. Insights, takeaways that you saw in terms of what’s different today now than it was two years ago and what was the impetus for that. Right.
And so, I’m curious. It’s like you stand back and go, all right, wow, this is a different report, and here’s why. What really stands out to you in the couple of years since the last report?
[00:12:38] Tyson Blauer: Yeah. So, the last report was really looking at the buying trends and just trying to look at what are those factors that are going into the, the new purchases of data archiving platforms. And so, this has a different flavor to it where we didn’t focus a lot on the buying trends, it was a lot more on, hey, you bought this. How’s it working? So, there’s definitely a lot of differences there. But also we were trying to parse out the field and say, okay, are there some vendors who work with larger, more complicated projects? Are there some who work with smaller, more basic projects? And so that’s really what we wanted to be able to parse out and see. Is there a difference between those two? And there is, you can see in there that there are some vendors who do more of those larger projects and some who do more of those smaller projects. And so that’s what we’re trying to do a little bit more, is to parse out and say there are differences between these. Not trying to say again, as you look through every vendor’s got small projects and big projects, but again, how much does that matter to a potential customer? That’s really where we want it to focus. And I think that was some good insight that we hadn’t had before to help show the market. There are differences between these, and so make sure you factor that into your calculation.
[00:13:46] Erik Johnson: Yeah, absolutely. Excellent. Thank you. Let’s turn our eye towards the future. Right. So, tell me a little bit about what’s planned in 2025 for research in this space.
[00:14:00] Tyson Blauer: Yep. So, I mean, with any of our research, we’re continuing to gather our regular performance data. You can see that on our website, just continuing watching the trends and how customers are satisfied generally. But in terms of next report, we’re already in the works of trying to start a report focusing on buying decisions again. But I’m really trying to focus a little bit more not only on the purchasing trends, but also the mind share. Just trying to show, as organizations think about this, if they have a current vendor, if they’re starting over again, who would be their top three that they’re looking at? Does their current vendor still sit up there? Is there someone else that they’re saying, oh yeah, we kind of wish we could go there, or we’ve heard good things about them, really just trying to show who’s got the mind share in this space and why. What is it that’s driving things to be able to help others who are, again, potentially shopping around and know well, what are my peers looking at? Both those who are prospectively shopping, but also those who maybe aren’t and have been hearing things as a current customer.
[00:14:57] Erik Johnson: Excellent. So if you got out your crystal ball a little bit, do you have any predictions as you look into kind of 2025 or beyond looking at some of the greater trends in healthcare? What’s happening with migrations of EHRs, introductions, of course, of new data and new technologies with AI?
Love to get in the crystal ball mindset for Tyson here. And what does your gut tell you about the importance of archive and migration going forward and how do you see this change?
[00:15:34] Tyson Blauer: Yeah, so as we’ve watched the trends, and again, this is Tyson talking, I’m not making any official statements here, but as we see what’s been happening, so there’s a couple of things. One is we are seeing more larger organizations making switches over, particularly with vulnerability in the Oracle customer base, seeing a lot of those customers moving. And so, we expect to continue see buying trends happening there. We are also seeing more and more vendors looking at getting into the archiving business. So, we’ve seen groups who have other types of technologies getting into it. We’ve seen professional services firms saying, hey, while we’re already here, let’s help with some archiving as well. So, we expect to see some increased competition and with that maybe there’s some consolidation that comes, we will see, but we expect that there’s going to be more of that that happens. But also, as you talk about AIH, one of the big complaints with data archiving is they say, yeah, this saves us money, but man, it’s still expensive to have to do this project to move things over and make sure you’re doing it in the right way. And so are there going to be some advances where AI can help to map that data to make things a little bit more automated and streamlined? That will be interesting to see. And then the question will be do or provide organizations continue to use archiving firms for that, or are there more diy tools available? Because we do talk to some who say we’re thinking about maybe doing this ourselves and does AI expand that option for them to say, maybe we can do this more ourselves because we’ve got some tools that can help us. So nothing on the immediate horizon. This is pie in the sky. Maybe one day we’ll get there if AI fulfills all its promises, but that’s some of the options we see.
[00:17:13] Erik Johnson: Yeah. Excellent.
If I’m a provider, how do I get access to KLAS Research and potentially access to this type of report?
[00:17:22] Tyson Blauer: Yeah, so any provider organization can get access to our data, just sign up on our website. We just basically need to verify that you’re real. So do a quick email confirmation and then you’re in. Folks are also more than welcome to email me directly. I’d be happy to connect you with that research. Tyson blowerlassresearch.com so we’re happy to help however we can. But like I say, any organization, anyone in your organizations can be able to get access to our research. We want to make sure that they’re, they’re seeing that data if it’s helpful.
[00:17:51] Erik Johnson: Excellent.
Well, Tyson, I want to thank you for joining our podcast this week. Very much appreciate it. It’s certainly an interesting and hot topic and we’re looking forward to continuing to watch KLAS, follow this space, and certainly look for your insights and continued leadership there and helping providers make decisions about what their needs are.
It’s a complex time, right? There’s more data than there’s ever been in healthcare right now. And helping them rationalize that and making that data available not only for archiving purposes but really real time care is certainly the initiative that we’re certainly here to support and continuing to help our healthcare providers. So with that, we’ll go ahead and wrap up. Thanks again, Tyson, and we really appreciate your time and thanks for joining.
[00:18:44] Tyson Blauer: Thanks for having me.
That’s it for this session of health data talks. Check out helpful resources@harmonyhit.com and follow us in your favorite podcast app to catch future episodes. We’ll see you next time.
Speakers
Host:
Erik Johnson, comes to Harmony Healthcare IT with over 20 years of experience leading marketing and commercial teams focusing on Healthcare Information Technology applications. Erik has worked with large organizations (3M, Wolters Kluwer) and start-ups (VigiLanz, PatientIQ), helping teams evolve their go-to-market strategies to achieve sustained growth.
Guest:
Tyson Blauer, is a Research Director who has been at KLAS for 8 years. He oversees research on Acute EHRs, Behavioral Health EHRs, Data Archiving, and interoperability solutions. He conducts interviews with provider executives, oversees the research operations, analyzes the data, and manages relationships with the vendors being measured.
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LinkedIn: @Harmony Healthcare IT, the Makers of HealthData Archiver®
Twitter: @HarmonyHit
