KLAS Report a Testament to Strong Client Partnerships

Vital was recently featured in an Emerging Company Spotlight published by KLAS Research. The independent assessment of Vital’s ERAdvisor patient experience platform for emergency departments reflected high performance across the board: the software earned A+ and A ratings in every major category and 100% of clients interviewed stated they have included Vital in their long-term business plans. 

In this blog post, Vital SVP of Client Success Joe Sedlak talks about how Vital’s forward-thinking clients have contributed to the development and deployment of ERAdvisor.

Don McCormick: Hi everyone. I'm Don McCormick, Chief Storyteller here at Vital. And today I'm speaking with Joe Sedlak, Head of Client Organization at Vital. Hi, Joe. How are you today? 

Joe Sedlak: I'm great. How are you doing today, Don? 

Don: Good, good. Yeah. I wanted to get some time with you, because I understand that the folks at KLAS recently interviewed some of our clients and produced a report that had some very positive feedback for our organization. It had to do with their use of ERAdvisor, which is our patient experience platform for emergency departments. Can you give us a quick summary of what was in the KLAS report? 

Absolutely. When we received the results of the KLAS report, we were overjoyed with some of the comments and the compliments that our client community has imparted on us. Just to summarize, when you look across our client community, 100% of them said that they would partner with Vital again. Across the board, 100% of our clients said that we are part of their long-term plans. That's probably one of the biggest testaments to the relationship and the partnership that we have with our client community. Not only are we meeting their needs and current state, but when they're thinking about their long-term strategic objectives, they're keeping Vital front and center.

And this really came through loud and clear in the KLAS report. Just some additional context and insights on it. KLAS does a typical, A through F rating on some of their more broad categories. Across the board, we had A's and A+’s. And again, directly attributed to the insights that our client community was able to share with us on our partnership with them.

Don: So, Joe, for folks just learning about Vital, tell us a little bit about our patient experience platform for the ED, ERAdvisor. How it helps patients and how it helps hospital staff. 

Joe: Sure. The premise for the solution is very simple. We're going to use the device that most patients are carrying into the emergency department with them — their mobile phone, their smartphone. Right out of the gates, when that patient provides simply a cell phone number, they're going to be invited into a very unique experience that is going to give them right away insights into their wait times. 

One of the more concerning things in the minds of a patient when they come into the ED is, how long am I going to be here? And how long until the next time I see somebody who is going to give me answers about this problem that I've committed ED to have solved? Because Vital’s ERAdvisor is connected to hundreds of different data points about that patient in the electronic health record and in other clinical systems, we're able to create an incredibly dynamic experience for that patient using ERAdvisor, wait times just being one key component.

So, not only are we going to be able to tell patients how long it's going to take, from the time they enter that ED’s front door to the time to triage to the time to get treatment to the time they get discharged. But we're also able to give patients insights into a lot of other elements of their care.

So, for example, most patients coming into the ED will have labs drawn or they might have imaging studies done. Using our proprietary AI and our algorithms, we can take those results from the imaging studies and from the lab results, and we can convert them into very plain language, easy-to-understand reading for the patient about what's happening. We can also then provide them some education on some of the findings that have come out of those lab results with some imaging studies or, as their diagnosis changes, as the insights on their care changes in their ED journey.

We can adapt ERAdvisor to meet their needs in that moment in that we can provide education based off of the changing needs of that patient throughout the journey, as that patient progresses towards discharge. We also get insights on what their discharge disposition is. We know if they've been instructed to follow up with the physician, we know the name of that physician and what other instructions they might have been asked to follow.

After they leave the ED, we can take those discharge notes and we can simplify them for the patient and we can parse them, and we can surface the most important information right to the very top. So the patient has a lot of information that's flowing at them at any given time in the ED and that can really allow them to focus on what's most important in that moment.

This also then connects the patient directly with the clinical staff in meaningful ways. So, in addition to ERAdvisor, we also have a companion application called CareAssist that the clinicians can use, whether that is an RN or for the most part, it's members of that care team that are ancillary, like care navigators or unit assistants or even volunteers that can directly connect the needs of the patient, such as service requests or patient experience related needs with the patient using ERAdvisor.

The entire experience comes together to create a much more dynamic experience for that patient, the net result of which is that patients that are coming in and out of any ED where ERAdvisor is a presence are going to feel much more informed throughout that ED journey. And they're also going to continue to be much more informed after they’ve left the ED through the continued use of that application.

So, the technology itself — and we're just getting started — has been transformative. The outcomes, in terms of impacting NPS and left-without-being-seen rates, have been transformative. And we can't wait to see where this thing goes from here. 

Don: Yeah. That's great. And about a million patients per year are using the platform.

Joe: This past year, we saw a million patients or just over a million patients use ERAdvisor coming in and out of the EDs within our client community. And that is really a monumental number when you think of the number of patients. And that's just not the number of patients that have come in. It’s really the number of patients that have had meaningful use of our technology. Within each of these EDs, they've logged into the application. They've spent meaningful time within that application. And yes, to your point, Don, we've had over a million patients in the past year that have used it. 

And so when you were starting out as a nurse, did you ever imagine that you would play a role in the lives of so many people?

Well, I was hoping actually. That was actually one of the motivating factors of becoming an RN — to play a role in the lives of people, in a very difficult moment. But from a technology perspective, I've seen an incredible arc in my 18 years in digital health. I've been an RN for 24 years.

And yes, I would say digital health has been transformative. And the ability to engage patients in their care, the ability to connect patients more directly with their care. It is one of the differentiators of Vital as a company, and we really think about this, not so much as a technology, but really more as a dynamic part of that patient experience. And our technology has really set that experience apart for all of our clients that have partnered with us to adopt this in emergency departments. 

Don: Is that close working relationship — that partnership with the clients — part of the successes that were noted in the KLAS report? 

Joe: Don, it's everything. It's not just a part of it. You know, it's one thing to create a product that is dynamic and that works well. But it requires a strong partnership with your clients to be able to effectively implement that. And let's be clear, Vital is an easy to deploy, easy to light up, easy to use, easy to integrate platform relative to most other digital health technologies that are on the market.

Even with that paradigm, it still requires an outstanding vision for the use of the product on the part of our clients, on the part of the administrators that look to partner with us. And it requires a client success organization and a client team that really understands how to be responsive to the needs of our clients, how to articulate value, and how to track that value over the lifetime of our relationship with that client.

So for us, I don't know how we could separate any successes that we have without really citing directly that partnership that exists at the client level. Right. And our product that was featured in this report — ERAdvisor, which is our solution for emergency departments — really is getting updates and enhancements all the time.

Don: You must be getting feedback from clients very regularly on what they'd like to see in the product. 

Joe: Of course we do. This comes along with being great partners with our client community. You know, if our product was static, if it was never changing, or if we didn't partner well with our client community, I don't think that we would get that feedback. Because we are really on the front lines with their clinicians, we're in the room with their executives, we're meeting with them regularly, it's a natural cadence for them to share their feedback on how to iterate our product. In fact, most of our best product ideas come from our client community. 

When we look at the innovations that we've made over the course of the past two years, both in new products and in enhancements to our existing products and within our portfolio, those have almost universally come from the challenges that are observed from our client community. And, our key executives have really challenged us to continue to evolve and adapt our products in ways that are going to meet their changing and dynamic needs over time. 

Don: So as we wrap up, Joe, any additional thoughts on the KLAS spotlight? 

Joe: I think the parting thought is that it's a good validation that we're focused on the right problems in health care today. The patient experience is something that has just simply never been solved. And there has been a lot of attention over the course of my career on trying to improve the capacity of our providers or hospitals or health systems to provide a better experience. 

For us, it starts with this very simple tenet that by engaging the patient more in their care, by demystifying some of that experience, we can create a better experience. We can create better outcomes. The KLAS report really validates that. 

We have the good fortune to be partnered with some of the most innovative, forward-thinking health systems in the country. Many of them are highly reputable by name, by outcomes, by reputation. And for us to be considered such a large part of their experience for those patients coming through their actual front door is a testament to the work we've done. It's a testament to the fact that we are focused on solving the right problems. And we couldn't be more proud of the insights that our clinic community has shared on this KLAS report. 

We're just getting started as a company. We're not that old, but, look out, because here we come. And there are a lot of other challenges here that we are looking forward to solving as it relates to the patient experience and keeping those patients engaged using our solutions.

Don: Yeah. Great. Great. In fact, the name of the spotlight is “Emerging Company Spotlight.” So yeah, you're right. We've really just kind of begun. So Joe, thank you so much for your time today. 

And, to our audience, thank you for your time. If you'd like to check out the KLAS spotlight report that we've been talking about today, just check the video description for a link. And if you'd like to learn more about Vital, visit Vital.io. Thanks very much.