The Healthcare Intelligence Hub E-Newsletter
Data / Empowering High Performance
Moving to the Front of the Health Information Exchange Market ... and Staying There
Jennifer Dennard, E-Media Marketing SpecialistOctober 7, 2010
The phrase Health Information Exchange is a popular one these days. Healthcare professionals are striving to set up HIEs for two reasons: to demonstrate meaningful use of electronic health records, and to subsequently qualify for incentive payments under the HITECH Act. Though HIE is certainly an important concept, and bandied about on a daily basis in backroom healthcare IT conversations, written about in articles and blogs, and perhaps given a thought or two by patients, its definition has yet to be, well, defined.
eHealth Initiative, a non-profit that has tracked the progress of organizations working on HIE since 2004, defines it as "the act of transferring health information electronically between two or more entities." The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) takes that definition one step further: "Information exchange is the electronic movement of health-related information among organizations according to nationally recognized standards."
Defining the Market
This lack of clarity is reflective of the HIE vendor market itself. There are many that have been in the HIE business for quite awhile, but few that have developed brands that have achieved a high level of recognition in the marketplace. A recent KLAS Enterprises report, " Health Information Exchanges: Perception in an Expanding Frontier," found that survey respondents from 95 different providers were considering a whopping 38 vendors for their HIE solutions. Only five of those vendors were in consideration by at least 10 percent of the providers surveyed. Why has the HIE market yet to offer up any real front-runners?
"Many providers feel like it is too soon to anoint a leader in this space," says Allison Norfleet, Vice President of Business Development at Porter Research, a market research and consulting firm that specializes in healthcare IT. "This is an emerging market and requirements for HIE are expanding from the simple 'pushing' of data - such as a lab result sent from a hospital to a physician's EMR - to that data becoming more actionable so that a clinician at the point of care can facilitate more coordinated care.
"While core vendors who have been in the market for years, like Axolotl and Medicity, have high brand awareness, the larger market is very fragmented with many players," she adds.
Market Research Proves its Worth
The HIE market grows more booming yet more convoluted every day, as start-ups join the game and larger companies make strategic acquisitions and mergers. Those vendors that want to enter the market, let alone move to the front of it, must come ready to play with a strong product development, marketing and customer retention strategy. Market research may be the key to getting ahead.
Informatics Corp. of America (ICA), one of the top five vendors in the KLAS report, has been using market research since it was founded. "ICA has been developing what the market has evolved to call HIE products since inception in 2005," says John Tempesco, Vice President of ICA's Client Services and Marketing. "As the market evolved, government regulation increased and healthcare participants became more aware of the value of health information exchange, we did engage a marketing firm to assess our image within the market and how best to communicate with potential clients.
"The research has focused on the perception of clients, potential clients, lost clients, consultants and internal staff about what ICA provides to the market, our strengths and weaknesses, and the reason the buying decision (win/loss) was made," he adds.
"The research enabled ICA executives to focus marketing efforts to emphasize the real and perceived strengths of or products and services, as well as to develop a messaging platform to educate internally and externally corrections to misperceptions that existed," explains Tempesco. "We also used this research to mold our message to meet the evolving terminology, standards and priorities because of the rapid changes within the market."
According to Norfleet, who has extensive experience in market research for HIE vendors, there are a number of factors healthcare providers look for when selecting a HIE:
- company viability;
- technology platform;
- demonstrable proof of concept/peer implementation;
- breadth of solutions;
- pricing model (sustainability); and
- partnership/risk sharing.
It enables them to:
- identify product development priorities that are top of mind for the market;
- identify the perceived functional priorities of the market, as well as purchase drivers, budget priority and budget cycle;
- test product concepts with regard to relevance, value and innovativeness;
- test market messages and product roadmaps, and relevance to the audience; and
- test pricing and package models.
"It has helped Axolotl understand where the market is with adoption, needs for cost improvement, process automation, and different HIE participants' need for data," says Elvia Watts, Axolotl's Public Relations Manager. "We are always conducting research to determine where the market is and what is needed next - NHIN, Meaningful Use, ACO, analytics, etc."
Getting in on the HIE Act
There is an overwhelming amount of room for market expansion, and it's anticipated that more HIE companies will enter the fray. Will this quickly expanding market, however, soon see its share of consolidation?
As Lorraine Fernandes related in a recent article on NHINWatch.com, federal funding of statewide HIEs will enable the market to expand before it consolidates - a phenomenon she expects to occur in late 2011. A loud cry for vendor partnerships is being heard, while mergers and acquisitions in the HIE marketplace have been making headlines for months - Ingenix's recent purchase of Axolotl is just one example.
Market research has a part to play in this side of HIE as well. As John Chilmark wrote in a recent assessment of the Ingenix acquisition, "Ingenix must address a market that has a lot of concerns over vendor/product viability. It is incumbent on Ingenix to educate the market that it indeed has a clear strategy for Axolotl and its Elysium platform. That the strategy aligns with market needs, that it includes continued support, and that they will continue to offer the level of support (if not better) that customers have come to expect from Axolotl."
Tick Tock Goes the HIE Clock
Time will tell if HIE vendors will successfully use market research to rise to the top of the market. Today they must keep up with provider demand and government mandates, stay abreast of the ever-expanding definition of Health Information Exchange, and strive to maintain a competitive edge over the ever-expanding HIE marketplace.
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