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Thirty percent of respondents in a new KLAS report are considering replacing their cardiovascular information system ( CVIS ) software because of ongoing frustrations with product functionality and integration. The new KLAS report, titled Cardiology IT: Has the industry missed a beat?, is based on interviews with 371 provider organizations that shared their experiences with a dozen CVIS software vendors. The high percentage of respondents considering a replacement system is indicative of the poor performance from most vendors in the space. With the exception of Digisonics and Philips, every vendor in this study received a lower client-satisfaction score than they did in the 2009 report, resulting in one of the lowest-rated market segments that KLAS monitors.

“When providers speak about the cardiology market, the overall tone is one of stagnation,” said Ben Brown, general manager of medical imaging and medical equipment research for KLAS and author of the new CVIS study. “Client satisfaction continues to trend downward industry-wide as vendors fail to deliver on integration, functionality and service expectations. Cardiology is a fragmented IT environment with a wide-open market waiting for a leader to step forward and deliver.”

The KLAS report notes that a comprehensive, truly integrated IT platform for the entire cardiovascular department still eludes the industry, with providers seeing little progress from what was reported in last year’s study. Though Agfa , Merge ( AMICAS ) and GE offer broad solutions and providers praise LUMEDX ’s and McKesson ’s integrated systems, few providers can point to any one vendor as delivering the ultimate package to the market.

ScImage and Merge ( AMICAS ) appear to be the vendors with the most to lose in this volatile market, with roughly half of their customers that were interviewed by KLAS indicating they are considering a replacement. However, those Merge customers were also quick to point out that replacement is not a definite plan, but they are anxious to see how the company addresses recent acquisitions.

Among the 10 vendors fully rated in the KLAS report, Digisonics earned the highest performance score of 83.6 out of 100 with its DigiView product, followed by Philips Xcelera at 75.4 and Merge VERCIS (AMICAS) at 72.3.

Source: KLAS