Infor Cloverleaf continues to outperform the competition in the latest Black Book survey

Black Book research announced the 2021 results of top interoperability solutions and Infor Cloverleaf is excited to be recognized as the top-rated vendor among:

• Physicians & Ambulatory Care organizations,

• Hospitals, Health Systems & Inpatient Facilities,

• Laboratory, Pharmacy, Radiology & Ancillaries,

• ACOs, Payers & Insurers.

We now are making this full report available here, because it is absolutely worth a closer look and analysis.

Black Book’s research methodology is different from other analysts – they surveyed a very large amount of validated system users. In the 2021 study they surveyed over 2,200 current users and additionally over 400 respondents in pre-use (implementation phase) for the healthcare provider space. They also received ballots from 712 users from payers, insurers, and related organizations (such as ACOs). This is a large survey of the market, the largest in fact I am aware of. As anybody with basic knowledge of statistics knows, the larger an unbiased sample is, the better it reflects reality. And reality is that our customers like the product, its features, the innovation and the competence and services of the Infor teams. In fact, Infor Cloverleaf earns not only the highest overall score with 9.81 out of 10, but it also wins in 12 out of 18 categories such as alignment of vendor offering to client’s goals and mission, innovation and optimization, and client relationships and cultural fit. This is a great testament not only to the innovative product team, but also to the AEs, SEs, and service providers that work with healthcare clients’ day-in, day-out around the world. Here the enormous investment Infor makes in industry specific solutions and teams that understand the needs and requirements of our customers pays off in customer satisfaction – and we are proud of that!

But let’s address the elephant in the room – how reliable are these results? Some critics question the methodology and therefore results of Black Book research. While I have no knowledge of the internal scoring process of the survey, I do know for a fact that Infor did not pay for this study, nor did we select who would be questioned or what questions would be asked, and we had zero influence on the scoring. So, when Black Book claims that their study is unbiased, I have no reason to doubt that, because certainly nobody at Infor had any influence.

That said, the 18 scoring categories really cover a brought range of topics and demonstrate that the people who assembled this survey clearly understand that a healthy relationship between a vendor and its clients requires more than just a good product. A good product can be a good product for a while, but if the rest of the parameters is not aligned, it seizes to be a good product. On the other hand, cultural alignment is important so vendor and clients can have a common understanding of goals, of the future of healthcare and of the future of a particular organization in the long run. And this is important in an environment where investments are made not with a quarterly horizon, but a 5 or 10 year or longer horizon. A commitment to an interoperability platform is usually a long-term commitment. It requires training of numerous people and implementation of hundreds of interfaces that are all critical to deliver patient care and support the mission of the organization.

Our commitment for Infor Cloverleaf is “Interoperability Innovation Delivered”, and that has been chosen with care. We know our customers in the provider and payer space must innovate in a constantly changing regulatory and business environment – and I’m not even talking about the current COVID pandemic here. All too often innovation is misunderstood as a rip-and-replace “revolution” – but this approach is not appropriate in the healthcare industry, where margins are slim, and operations are 24x7x365. Instead, we help our customers to innovate through evolution, by keeping their key assets in production, keeping their infrastructure alive, healthy, and viable, by connecting it with the latest and needed technology innovations. We augment the existing EHR system while allowing to leverage its data for new care improvements across the care continuum. We even help customers that have chosen a different vendor in the past to keep that infrastructure in place, if they like it, and still leverage the latest innovations utilizing our FHIR suite of products. Yes, our FHIR suite of products can be implemented on top of other HL7 v2 infrastructure and still connect in real-time to FHIR resources – and this is not only good news for our long-term customers, but also for anybody in the industry that sits on legacy technology that makes innovation difficult – talk to the our team, and we will help you deliver innovative workflows that deliver on your organization’s goals and mission. That is really what the Black Book report shows – we are here to help, and our customers appreciate this as much as we appreciate the partnership with our customers.

Written by:

Joerg Schwarz, Industry Solution & Strategy, Director, Infor