A Fresh Perspective on What It Means to Be Best in KLAS
This three-part blog series will discuss the Best in KLAS awards from a provider, vendor, and inside-KLAS perspective.
I remember my first day working at KLAS. Everything was a complete blur. What I do recall, however, was hearing employees discussing Best in KLAS. That night, I even dreamed about winning a Best in KLAS award (even though I didn’t know what it was). With the Best in KLAS Awards 2013: Medical Equipment and Infrastructure report being published on June 14, I set out on a mission. I was determined to discover from an outside perspective what it really meant to be Best in KLAS.
I quickly recognized that there were three key groups involved in the Best in KLAS awards: providers, vendors, and KLAS. I entered detective mode and decided to interview each of these groups to find out what Best in KLAS meant to them.
When I set out to interview providers, I lucked out and was able to listen in on interviews with a variety of CIOs and VPs who use KLAS data on a regular basis. Out of all of these interviews, three consistent themes emerged about what Best in KLAS means to providers.
1) Make Better Decisions
Providers are constantly faced with critical purchasing decisions. The Best in KLAS report helps providers make more informed decisions by providing accurate, honest, and impartial data. When Dr. Mason Brown, CIO of Floyd Medical Group, was faced with purchasing a new ambulatory EMR system, he turned to KLAS data. “It was the KLAS data that we relied heavily on during our initial phases of selection. We were able to rule out or rule in specific systems simply based off of the research KLAS made available to us.” Dr. Brown joins over 20,000 other providers who are actively engaging with KLAS to gain greater insight before making critical decisions.
2) Be Heard and Be Counted
Best in KLAS provides a platform for providers to be heard and be counted. Providers are able to share their experiences with different products and services and to learn from their peers’ experiences. In regards to his participation with KLAS data, Russ Branzell, CEO/President of Chime, states, “We want to be part of the process. We want to make sure it [the information] is the most accurate and that our input is in there.” Ultimately, it is the collective voice of providers that makes KLAS data accurate, honest, and impartial.
3) Improve Healthcare
KLAS enables providers to deliver better care by providing them with unbiased data. Russ Branzell explains that the data “gives us a head start on how to adapt and what technology to adopt to improve our care continuum. It really gives us the trends of which technology companies are really focused on improving quality.”
Providers also discussed how the data helps vendors produce better products. Amy Feaster, VP of Information Technology at Centura Health, states that KLAS data improves healthcare by “getting honest feedback to our vendors, which in turn helps them improve their products and services.” Better care and better products ultimately mean better healthcare.
As I completed the first leg of my journey, I started to realize what an impact Best in KLAS has on the delivery of care and how important KLAS data is for healthcare providers. Stay tuned early next week when I will share my investigation into the vendor’s perspective on what it means to be Best in KLAS.