Digital Transformation Consulting 2023
Transforming the Consumer Healthcare Experience

Digital Transformation Consulting Market Overview

The digital transformation of healthcare is still progressing and does not carry the same meaning for everyone. This section is intended to provide an overview of digital transformation consulting, the types of projects firms have completed, and outcomes provider organizations are achieving.

Chartis & ECG Management Consultants Most Consistently Meet Client Needs & Are Seen as Strategic Partners

Chartis has won the Best in KLAS award for digital transformation consulting for 2022 and 2023. Due to their digital transformation experience, the firm’s consultants are seen as strategic partners and thought leaders who provide a broad, deep perspective on industry trends. Respondents who report opportunities for better alignment point to their provider organization’s internal culture or change management challenges. ECG Management Consultants is also a high performer in this space and similarly described as a strategic partner. Clients highlight that the firm understands the market and tailors their advice to the organization’s unique needs. A few respondents noted engagement misses, including slightly incorrect projections, consultants not staying focused on the project scope, and clinical advisors with insufficient hands-on experience. Clients of Impact Advisors view the firm as a trusted partner who has vested interest in clients’ success. Feedback on the consultants is mixed; clients feel success depends on having the right consultants on their project.

“ECG Management Consultants was awesome. They were really collaborative. The firm listened very well, and they took our feedback and really synthesized it before giving us a model. They had worked in similar spaces doing similar work before, so in terms of the big picture, they understood the strategy and knew what we were trying to accomplish. We really leaned on them for everything. ECG Management Consultants aligned with the work that was being done in other parts of the organization too. So there was continuity across our organization as a whole, and that is always really important.” —VP

“ECG Management Consultants was awesome. They were really collaborative. The firm listened very well, and they took our feedback and really synthesized it before giving us a model. They had worked in similar spaces doing similar work before, so in terms of the big picture, they understood the strategy and knew what we were trying to accomplish. We really leaned on them for everything. ECG Management Consultants aligned with the work that was being done in other parts of the organization too. So there was continuity across our organization as a whole, and that is always really important.” —VP

Cross-Industry Firm Accenture Tackles Some of the Longest, Most Complex Projects

Accenture engagements (most of which involve digital architecture and analytics) are some of the most complex digital transformation projects validated in this report, both in number of consultants and project length. Interviewed clients appreciate the firm’s balance of healthcare-specific knowledge and cross-industry expertise as well as their partnering approach that seeks to understand clients’ organizations and goals. One respondent who engaged Accenture for a larger project expressed dissatisfaction with the firm’s knowledge transfer and training; this respondent also noted that the value of the services deteriorated through the project and that the firm seemed more interested in gaining new business from their organization instead of completing existing requirements.

All Firms Praised for General Healthcare Knowledge and Expertise; Specific Digital Transformation Expertise Still Growing

Clients of Accenture, Chartis, Damo Consulting, ECG Management Consultants, and Impact Advisors praise their firms for the general healthcare knowledge and expertise they provide; at least one respondent for each firm gave them full marks on this metric. Respondents also report that due to the firms’ strong knowledge bases, the provider organizations don’t have to explain things to the individual consultants. In contrast, these firms generally score lower for specific digital transformation expertise. (Chartis is the exception, with nearly all respondents giving the firm a perfect score for this type of expertise.) Overall, interviewed clients want their firms to provide more digital transformation expertise beyond the organization’s internal knowledge; some respondents felt there were few “aha” moments for consultants during their engagement and that their firm didn’t provide much deep, original thinking.

Firms at a Glance 

Firms ordered alphabetically

What they do (a client explains): “Accenture is accelerating our digital transformation by partnering with our internal people, which has accelerated what we want to do. Accenture has done a lot of work in healthcare, so their approach is tailored, but they also have done work in many other industries. Our engagement involved looking at a specific consumer engagement and user experience strategically. We also got help with the development of a prototype for a digital assistant.” —VP

How they perform: All respondents but one report being highly satisfied with Accenture. The overall rating from the one dissatisfied client is the lowest client rating of any firm in this report.

Reported outcomes: Increased transparency, improved convenience, improved satisfaction, improved efficiency

What they do (a client explains): “Chartis helped us with a digital road map exercise, the prioritization of digital initiatives, and a future-state organization structure. Chartis did all of the road map. There were high-level priorities, tactics, and initiatives to put in place around digital transformation and digital innovation, as well as organizational structure.”  —Chief digital officer

How they perform: Clients consistently report high satisfaction with Chartis—almost half of respondents gave the firm the highest possible score. All interviewed clients would recommend the firm and work with them again.

Reported outcomes: Improved patient satisfaction, chatbot implementation, virtual patient visits, remote work for employees, patient accessibility, increased internal transparency

What they do (a client explains): “My primary work with ECG Management Consultants has been business strategy consulting, but I have also used the firm to validate some of our own work to objectively assess the progress and performance of a developing project. We saw a significant productivity lift in one of our groups. ECG Management Consultants helped us validate and assess the numbers. There were true apples-to-apples comparisons of performance improvement.”  —CEO

How they perform: Organizations that work with ECG Management Consultants are consistently highly satisfied with the firm. All respondents would recommend the firm and work with them again.

Reported outcomes: Increased productivity, expedited contracting, improved reimbursement rates, improved margins

What they do (a client explains): “Impact Advisors has deep insight into the landscape of digital transformation solutions. Foundationally, Impact Advisors understands healthcare. They know where success is, what to prioritize first, how to gather consensus, and how to build a governance structure to sort through decisions and get multidisciplinary buy-in. Impact Advisors is unbiased in making references, connections, and recommendations. They have significant investments from other players in the space, and Impact Advisors is starting to become more diverse by adding other healthcare-related disciplines.” —CIO

How they perform: Most interviewed Impact Advisors clients report high satisfaction; other respondents had a less-consistent experience with the firm and their consultants. All respondents would work with the firm again.

Reported outcomes: Reduced friction with the customer experience, improved digital capabilities

What they do (a client explains): “I wanted Damo Consulting to help me define the important factors of our customer experience. I was interested in digital capabilities across the industry, what everyone else was doing, and the value of certain approaches, and those things were what was delivered. The engagement was well defined, and Damo Consulting delivered. The firm helped validate some things we were already doing and helped the rest of the road map take shape.” —Chief digital officer

How they perform: The overall experience for Damo Consulting clients varies. All respondents would recommend the firm, but one would not work with the firm again. Damo Consulting is the only measured firm to have less than half of client respondents report the firm consistently exceeds expectations (all other firms had more than half).

Reported outcomes: Curation of all solutions’ information, collaboration with another health system with similar solutions

What they do (a client explains): “The firm is helping us do projects in a whole new way of working that is very digital-user centered. I am continually trying to figure out new opportunities to bring the firm in to help us. If there is something helpful in the market, the firm points us at it. The firm has a high-level competitive analysis for us that really helps us get a head start.” —VP

How they perform: Two of the three interviewed clients are highly satisfied. The other respondent felt a lack of value because they did not achieve all needed outcomes. All interviewed clients would recommend the firm and work with them again.

Reported outcomes: Modernized approach due to mobile application, improved employee experience due to reduced administrative burden and organization working as a collective unit

What they do (a client explains): “We wanted to bring our insurance eligibility up to a certain rate. That was our main goal with this project aside from eliminating duplicate work. The firm understood and adapted by tracking the eligibility and giving us a grid at the very end of the project. So we saw the actual results and benchmarks change. Guidehouse left us with what we needed to do afterward. If we had the money, we would have engaged with the firm to do the whole darn thing. But the firm left us with a really good tool to help us continue on the journey.” —Director

How they perform: Most clients report being highly satisfied with Guidehouse. Feedback about the firm’s strategic ability is mixed—some respondents feel the firm is proactive, while others want more guidance about what they need. All interviewed clients would work with the firm again, and most would recommend them.

Reported outcomes: Increased insurance eligibility rate, elimination of duplicate work

About This Report 

Each year, KLAS interviews thousands of healthcare professionals about the IT solutions and services their organizations use. For this report, interviews were conducted over the last 18 months using KLAS’ standard quantitative evaluation for healthcare services, which is composed of 9 numeric ratings questions and 3 yes/no questions, all weighted equally. Combined, the ratings for these questions make up the overall performance score, which is measured on a 100-point scale. The questions are organized into five customer experience pillars—loyalty, operations, relationship, services, and value.

To supplement the customer satisfaction data gathered with the standard evaluation, KLAS created a supplemental evaluation to understand how digital transformation firms perform for provider organizations. KLAS asked interviewed participants how they would rate their firm for (1) their change management and business process reengineering, (2) their specific digital transformation expertise, (3) their understanding of consumer expectations and best practices, (4) general healthcare knowledge and expertise, and (5) their HIT solution expertise. Data was collected from September 2021 to September 2022.

Sample Sizes

Unless otherwise noted, sample sizes displayed throughout this report (e.g., n=16) represent the total number of unique client organizations interviewed for a given firm or service. However, it should be noted that to allow for the representation of differing perspectives within any one client organization, samples may include surveys from different individuals at the same organization. The table below shows the total number of unique organizations interviewed for each firm or service as well as the total number of individual respondents.

Some respondents choose not to answer particular questions, meaning the sample size for any given firm or service can change from question to question. When the number of unique organization responses for a particular question is less than 6, the score for that question is marked with an asterisk (*) or otherwise designated as “limited data.” If the sample size is less than 3, no score is shown. Note that when a firm has a low number of reporting sites, the possibility exists for KLAS scores to change significantly as new surveys are collected.