Who To Call For Help With Health ITWho To Call For Help With Health IT

Healthcare companies looking for help implementing electronic medical records and other health IT investments should take a look at Affiliated Computer Services, CTG and Deloitte, according to a KLAS, a group that reviews and rates healthcare technology and consultants.

Those three consulting groups are in a virtual dead heat at the top of KLAS's list of lead consultants for clinical engagements in its new report: Getting to Stimulus Funding: Which Consultants Can Help? They scored 10 points above the next closest firm, Accenture, which is a significant performance gap, KLAS said.

The report reviews the clinical implementation, clinical transformation, staff augmentation and advisory services capabilities of more than a dozen firms, including large, full-service consultancies and smaller specialty firms.

IBM, the top-performing company in 2006 for large clinical implementations, "has dropped significantly, as has CSC," KLAS said. Neither firm has been able to maintain the high customer ratings once enjoyed by the healthcare-focused consultancies Healthlink, which IBM bought in 2005, and First Consulting Group, which CSC acquired in 2007, according to KLAS.

"Over the last year or two, we've seen IBM's advanced clinical projects drop off and a lot of their talented resources move in other directions," said Mike Smith, KLAS's general manager of financial and services research. "They're not the firm they were when they acquired Healthlink" when it comes to clinical consulting, he said.

While IBM and CSC enjoyed the lion's share of larger clinical engagements a few years ago, Deloitte and ACS have now joined CSC as key players, KLAS found. And much like IBM, CSC has lost quite a few of the First Consulting Group team it acquired when purchasing that company. "They don't have the level of depth they had in the old FCG days," Smith said.

It seems clear that, at least in the world of consulting, the M&A game is risky. "Consulting firms are only as good as the people they have," said Smith, who added that sometimes the most talented people aren't properly incented to stick around.

Full-service firms aren't the only option for healthcare providers looking to deploy and speed adoption of clinical systems, KLAS said. Firms like maxIT Healthcare and Vitalize have experience working with several vendors and offer solid teams of skilled consultants to fill supportive roles for providers' smaller projects.

Other services firms--including Coastal, Ingenix, Innovative Healthcare Solutions and Peer Consulting--deliver highly rated implementation services primarily focused on a particular vendor or product, KLAS states.

Staff augmentation is a growing area for consultants as well, KLAS found. Providers are often looking for a few people to come in and help them with certain applications, like physician documentation, Smith said. "You need someone who knows that application well, and that falls under the area of staff augmentation," he said.

When working with consultants, healthcare providers must make sure that what's promised--or rather who's promised--is actually delivered. That means providers need to go beyond a cursory review of resumes and get their hands dirty.

"You need to get their resumes and interview them if you can--at least the lead people who are going to head the project," Smith said. "We've seen hospitals go to that effort to ensure success. The engagement is only as good as the people who are sent out, and there have been some instances where people have told us, 'You know what, we got the B-team,' and the best way to not get the B-team is to know who's going to be assigned to your project."

Anthony Guerra is the founder and editor of healthsystemCIO.com, a site dedicated to serving the strategic information needs of healthcare CIOs. He can be reached at [email protected].

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