Growth in Market Research and Strategic Consulting Marks Three-Year Anniversary for HIMSS Analytics

As a leading market research organization, HIMSS Analytics celebrates three years in tracking healthcare data, providing executive consulting, and delivering primary market research.

CHICAGO (June 25, 2007) - It was in 2004 that the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society launched its market research subsidiary HIMSS Analytics™. Now, just three years later, HIMSS Analytics has brought new leadership to the marketplace and upgraded and expanded its healthcare IT data mine.  

The HIMSS Analytics Database, represents a comprehensive, Web-based source that has grown by 45 percent and contains current detailed demographic and IT profile information on over 5,000 hospitals and integrated delivery systems in the US.

“We took the initial concept and redesigned the database to develop the products and services we have today,” says Mike Davis, HIMSS Analytics executive vice president for products and services.” CIOs who participate in HIMSS Analytics Annual Study can now update their data themselves by entering it into the user-friendly Web-enabled data collection interface or specially designed Excel spreadsheets, which have dropdown boxes for easier data input, while also improving data accuracy.

HIMSS Analytics President/CEO Dave Garets says that “we have created a value proposition for the CIOs who provide data to us. We continue to work with these professionals and their staff to make data collection easier.”  He explains that for participation in HIMSS Analytics Annual Study, participants receive, at no charge:

• access to 40 different benchmarking reports
• access to the HIMSS Analytics vendor profile database
• access to a search tool that enables peer identification based on a variety of criteria, such as type of IT system, demographic information, etc.

After spending that first year modernizing and revising the database, HIMSS Analytics began offering more customized market research programs to help clients reach their market objectives with primary market research, consulting and data analysis services. New products and services include executive and primary market research consulting services and specific resources, such as the HIMSS/HIMSS Analytics Annual Report of the U.S. Hospital IT Market (created from data within the HIMSS Analytics Database), the comprehensive 400+ page Essentials of the U.S. Hospital IT Market report (also created from data within the HIMSS Analytics Database), the State Healthcare Knowledgebase and more. 

HIMSS Analytics also uses its own data to conduct research, such as the recent University HealthSystems Consortium report on EMR adoption’s impact on clinical quality scores.  The white paper shows powerful evidence that sophisticated EMR technologies positively correlate to improved measures of patient outcomes.  “It is a way that we can give back to the industry by providing this type of research at no charge,” says Mr. Davis. (The report is available at http://www.himssanalytics.org/docs/UHC25.pdf on the HIMSS Analytics Web site.)

Updates to the database continue on a regular basis and are vital to HIMSS Analytics’ ability to serve the industry. “We are pleased with the growth that we’ve experienced and continue to find that the industry is responding very positively to making the database as accurate as possible,” said Mr. Garets.  “We’ve experienced a positive response from our clients that include the vendor community and healthcare organizations themselves.”

As for future plans, HIMSS Analytics is expanding its scope to create a new database of ambulatory facilities.  Additionally, HIMSS Analytics is developing a Canadian database to collect similar data for Canadian healthcare organizations.  The Canadian database will be exclusively sold through a joint marketing and sales agreement with Branham Group, Inc.

“For any group to drive change and improvement in a profession or industry, market research is critical,” said H. Stephen Lieber, HIMSS president/CEO.  “With HIMSS Analytics, we have provided another resource to help HIT professionals, providers and vendors improve the delivery of healthcare.”

HIMSS Analytics™ Database

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