As the health care industry continues to undergo major renovations in the pursuit of a better business model, hospitals are showing more interest than ever in population health management utilities. PHMs have the potential to provide information to treatment centers that may inform their own spending needs, allowing them to function more efficiently in today's value-based reimbursement climate. Data concerning treatments, claims, and patient demographics all may be aggregated in order to illustrate a clinic's individual needs.

Despite the demand, a report published today by Chilmark Research called Analytics for Population Health Management Market Trends Report, suggests that most of the companies trying to capitalize on the necessity for powerful PHM tools-including electronic health record vendors- are not yielding great results.

John Moore, founder and managing partner at Chilmark said in a blog post, "we found a market that is currently seeing strong adoption of niche, best-of-breed solutions. These solutions, while offering [relatively] short implementation timeframes and time to value, are also solutions health care organizations tend to grow out of after only a few years."

Although over 100 vendors currently claim to be actively working towards meaningful data aggregation, the study suggests very few are actually delivering on that goal. "Vendors can be roughly divided into two categories: best-of-breed and platform-play vendors depending on their particular products and marketing strategies," said report author, Cora Sharma in a statement. "It is currently a best-of-breed market, with providers adapting vendor solutions to meet a particular need created by a specific payment contract. Vendors aspiring to become enterprise-wide platforms find 'enterprise-thinking' health care organizations in short supply."

Moore emphasized the unfulfilled potential for EHRs to make a big splash. "EHR vendors have the gateway into clinician workflow and are an obvious candidate to provide clinical decision support at the point of care based on data-driven analytics," said Moore. "While EHR vendors have this somewhat obvious advantage, they have not capitalized upon it and by and large, their solutions remain immature in comparison to their best-of-breed brethren."

The report weighs the pros and cons of 19 different vendors against one another and evaluates their performance in Data Aggregation; Population Insight; and Care Management, Workflow and Action. According to the press release, embedded, easy-to-use PHM applications are going to be essential to next generation EHR products that wish to see continued growth.

The report also provides suggestions for hospitals and care centers preparing to set out on the road to choosing a data aggregation system. Unfortunately, based on Chilmark's findings, that road is as bumpy as ever.

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