Best in KLAS…How you the Consultant Directly Impact the Results

Anyone who was on LinkedIn last week probably noticed the endless posts regarding Best in KLAS.  The annual report came out last Monday and showcased top rated EHRs including Epic and MEDITECH, top in Overall IT Services to Nordic, top in Revenue Cycle Services to Ensemble, and top IT Outsourcing to HCTec.  The 259 page report has a lot of information, but why does this report matter to us consultants?  In my opinion, firms that are not in the top 3 or 4 of any rated category may not be considered for opportunities in the market.  Which could mean more bench time to you.  Knowing where your firm falls is important.  Knowing how you directly impact that score should be just as important as well.

Let’s take a minute to talk a little more about the report.  While KLAS is very broad in there categories from Acute EHRs to Payer Solutions to Imaging Systems, as a consultant our eyes go right to the Services and Consulting area that has 26 different categories.  From there we can dive into those we all support like IT Advisory Services, Healthcare Management Consulting, HIM Services, Implementation Services, IT Outsourcing, Revenue Cycle Services, and Technical Services…to name a few. 

Within each of these categories are grades based on questions submitted to clients on performance and return on investment.  The questions are broken in 5 area including loyalty, operations, services, relationship, and value. Believe it or not your individual contribution and performance on a project can, and does, impact those scores.  The difference between an A and A- can mean be ranked 3^rd because of a 0.3 score difference, as was the case with my firm to be in 2^nd instead of 3^rd place for Go-Live services. 

Clients are asked questions about the value they saw in bringing the firm in.  But really they are being asked about you and the impact you made on the project, and most importantly…the impression you made to them regarding your firm.  Sure, you may say you are only 1 of dozens of consultants on a project.  But think about this analogy.  If you had a wonderful dinner, with great food and great service but while enjoying your dinner noticed a long black hair in your food…what do you do and what will you remember later?  When filling out these surveys sometimes the finding of the hair overshadows everything else.  Each one of us on a project make up the entire experience, don’t be the piece of hair.

The most common area of impact on a project, and potential impact to a client feedback to KLAS, is the value add you brought. Differentiating yourself through quality of deliverables and providing documentation, regardless of being asked or not, is a major point of impact. Document everything you’ve built, tested, and/or created. If the client doesn’t want a weekly status report, create one anyway and create an end of project summary as a leave behind. Give client employees your email and cell phone so they can contact you if you are away. Be that person who is always first in and last out. Make yourself available, stick out as a team player who wants to be there…differentiate yourself from others and show the value add.

If you haven’t seen the report, ask your manager or marketing team if they can share the results.  Take a look at the rating but also ask to see the comments.  While KLAS doesn’t provide the client name, it is often times easy to identify who the client was by specifics called out in the comments.  Don’t look to management or your executive team to own your firms KLAS ratings, it truly all comes down to the individual consultant…you.

How did your firm do on the report?  Did you see any surprises?  Share your comments below.