KLAS Report Finds Picking the Right Implementation Partner Takes Time & Planning

In a recent interview with Anthony Guerra of healthsystemCIO, Kaleb Harris, Research Director at KLAS, discusses the importance of selecting the right partner for go-live support. Harris emphasizes the critical role that consulting services play in ensuring successful EHR activations, particularly in high-stakes environments involving major vendors such as Epic, Oracle/Cerner, and Meditech. The complexity and scale of these projects requires careful consideration of the firm’s experience with specific software and the size of the healthcare organization. Harris also stresses the importance of proactive communication, thorough planning, and strong leadership engagement to navigate potential challenges and ensure smooth go-live events.

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Bold Statements

It’s also prudent for the organization to give runway. The actual event is generally between two to four weeks, but its important to engage firms months in advance to talk through the onboarding process and a systematic plan to ensure they put themselves in the best position to be successful.

There’s a finite number of resources in the market. So understanding how many organizations are going live at this time period, how many refuel engagements or things that are happening as well is important.

Anthony: Welcome to healthsystemCIOs interview with Kaleb Harris, Research Director at KLAS. I’m Anthony Guerra, Founder and Editor-in-Chief. Kaleb, thanks for joining me.

Kaleb: Glad to be here, Anthony. Looking forward to the conversation.

Anthony: You put your heart and soul into your reports so it’s probably fun to talk about them, right?

Kaleb: Yes, definitely. It is a process to say the least. So hopefully it’s impactful for the market.

Anthony: This report is “Go-Live Support 2024, Finding the Right Partner in a High-Performing Market.” Very interesting topic. Can you give me the quick overview of KLAS and your role.

Kaleb: Sure. KLAS is a mission-driven organization with an objective to improve healthcare. We talk directly to the end users, getting anonymous feedback and sharing unfiltered feedback with the market. My role is to work with firms in their respective segments where we’re measuring primarily EHR and ERP implementation. The firms leading those  implementations and/or staffing go-live activations are the areas that I am responsible for.

Anthony: Very good. Why did you decide to tackle this particular topic?

Kaleb: We decided to tackle this one because we’re still seeing a fair amount of activations and go lives happening in the market. Being able to share this information with the industry and to support significant decisions. It can be a very costly decision when deciding who health systems should engage.  Who can help with this significant investment with a particular software and getting those lights turned on, that initial training and go live event can be very stressful. And to share with the market which firms are going to perform at a high level, help health systems make and continue to inform decision around the partnership with this particular engagement.

Anthony: We’re talking about the big EHR vendors, Epic and Oracle/Cerner and Meditech, and that’s pretty much where we are these days. What’s the sentiment or messaging from the vendors on a go live? Is it sort of, yeah, you absolutely need to engage someone to help you, we’re going to do our part, but you need help. Or is it, we got this – you and us together, we got this,