HIT Market Overview and Market Taxonomy

 
Annually, we publish an HIT Market Overview and Market Taxonomy report. This report segments the HIT product and services marketplace in conformance with SRS’ HIT maturity model. The report identifies the major and minor product and service providers in each segment, highlighting new entrants, as well as those that have introduced new products during the current year.

Vendor Assessments

Today, more than ever before, the healthcare IT market is a dynamic one, with literally dozens of companies, hundreds of new products and thousands of product enhancements introduced every year. Few IT organizations can afford the resources to track and assess this volume of activity. Many of these new products come from small, often newly formed, companies, and the mortality rate is high. Which of these emerging products are market-changing and which, merely curiosities? Which deliver true business value? Which will survive? How do these products compare in terms of capability, technology, integration or price? At SRS, we track and analyze hundreds of these events annually. This expertise helps our clients navigate uncharted waters and make more informed, viable purchasing decisions.

Executive Board Education and Facilitation

SRS consultants can provide C-suite, board and executive level briefings on key market trends or specific technologies, as well as in-depth one and two-day staff education. The agendas for these presentations and education sessions are custom-designed to meet the needs of the client, their IT priorities and challenges. Our consultants can brief your executive team or serve as facilitators at strategic planning sessions to provide, for example, an overview of the structure, size and organization of the healthcare IT vendor market, an overview of key industry trends, survey findings, the impact and implications of government policy changes and analyses of important, market-shaping events drawn from our recent research.

HIT Benchmarking Services

Many healthcare organizations that are either contemplating major IT investments or that have recently implemented new technology, seek to validate their expectations or compare their experiences by benchmarking themselves against other, comparable organizations. But publicly available benchmark data may be incomplete, too general or derived from unrepresentative comparative populations. SRS specializes in delivering targeted, customized benchmark analyses that provide our clients with information and insights that are both more granular and more relevant than otherwise available using publicly available benchmarks

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IT Organizational Assessment

As healthcare organization’s IT environments expand and mature, so, too, must their IT organizations in order to meet expectations of service quality, efficiency and effectiveness. SRS helps its clients to ensure that their IT organization and its operating policies and procedures, staffing, skills, management practices and tools can meet these demands. Our consultants have in-depth experience with IT management tools and practices such as ITIL. They are experienced in performing comprehensive IT organizational reviews that assess IT department management policies, practices and performance and compare them against best practices, both specific to healthcare organizations, as well as non-healthcare organizations of similar size and with similar technical profiles.

IT Strategic Planning and Strategic Advisory Services

Healthcare organizations planning major IT investments must consider many factors in making such decisions. Many that have made investments find that their experience falls short of their expectations. To avoid these pitfalls and maximize the benefits of the investment requires careful planning. It requires a planning methodology which is tightly coupled to business strategy and business goals and objectives. It requires a planning process that includes comprehensive, objective analyses of total project costs and the definition of implementation strategies that provide true process transformation and workflow optimization. It requires an appreciation for the regulatory, economic and other industry trends that will shape tomorrow’s IT requirements. It requires an awareness of the emerging technologies that will be in tomorrow’s mainstream to ensure that today’s technology path is not tomorrow’s dead end. At SRS, our consultants have the skills, the experience and the knowledge of products, technology and market trends to help our clients navigate the changing landscape, make enduring decisions and optimize their investments.

Meaningful Use Readiness Assessment

Many healthcare provider organizations are preparing to increase their investments in clinical information systems in order to qualify for federal health IT adoption incentives. But for hospitals or physician practices to qualify for an EHR adoption incentive under the provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), they must not only have a certified EHR product operational but also demonstrate that it is being utilized in a “meaningful” way, consistent with federal guidelines. Our experience, and those of our business partners, can help our clients identify and focus on the critical areas that enhance the meaningful use of IT by clinicians. Through our “ARRA Readiness Assessment” services, we will develop an overall profile of your organization’s readiness to meet requirements of ARRA/HITECH and attain the desired clinical and financial objectives and provide a roadmap to address any gaps.

IT Governance Assessment

The successful implementation of enterprise-wide IT projects requires much more than simply buying software that meets the organization’s desired features and functions and installing it on time and on budget. Success is measured by achieving widespread acceptance and realizing the business, clinical and financial goals as defined by senior management. To ensure this success requires the tight coupling of IT and business strategies and goals, a formal, clearly defined executive governance process and effective project and change management methodologies. At SRS, our consultants have the knowledge, skills and experience in strategic IT and business planning, hospital operations, change management and project management to ensure that our clients utilize industry best practices, policies, procedures and tools to maximize the value of their IT investments and the benefits IT can bring to their organizations.

Independent Verification and Validation

Oversight of high-profile, large scale IT projects by executive or board level committees has become increasingly commonplace in healthcare provider organizations, and these committees are turning to objective third party resources to provide Independent verification and validation (IV&V). IV&V is a practice that has been widely adopted in federal IT contracts. This approach utilizes an objective third party to monitor the progress of major IT projects and the performance of the provider’s IT organization and its technology contractors with respect to the quality of the work product, conformance to budgets, schedules and other contractual terms and to identify corrective actions necessary to address any variances. SRS consultants have extensive experience with such engagements in both the public and the private sector and can provide similar support to your organization’s most strategic IT initiatives.

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