Vizient and Qualtrics Announce Strategic Partnership to Develop Predictive Experience Metrics to Revolutionize Healthcare Performance

Qualtrics and Vizient combine quality and patient experience data from leading hospitals, showing a tie between patient experience and clinical outcomes

Innovative partnership will empower healthcare organizations with holistic, actionable insights that will transform the way healthcare organizations measure and improve performance by using groundbreaking research-backed predictive experience models

IRVING, Texas and PROVO, Utah, Sept. 17, 2024 — Vizient, Inc. the nation's largest healthcare performance improvement company, and Qualtrics, the leader and creator of the experience management category, today announced an innovative strategic partnership to employ experience metrics to transform the way healthcare organizations measure and improve performance. The partnership will help organizations more deeply understand relationships between quality, safety, and patient experiences.

This collaboration will move beyond traditional siloed measurement, combining key metrics and benchmarks Vizient and Qualtrics measure in order to drive meaningful improvements in patient outcomes and operational efficiency. 

University of Utah Health, Memorial Hermann Health System, and Stanford Health Care—leaders in both clinical care and patient experience— participated in a pilot analysis for this groundbreaking initiative. The results of an initial analysis, presented this week at the Vizient Connections Summit, linked patient experience metrics such as clearer medical provider communication to important clinical outcomes, like emergency room visits, complications, and readmissions.

"Quality and patient experience are interrelated, but data is not easy to analyze at the patient level. By bringing quality, safety, and experience data together, we believe we can unlock the most impactful drivers of healthcare performance across multiple domains and the relationships between them," said David Levine, MD, FACEP, Chief Medical Officer for Vizient. "This level of depth in insights has not been achieved in healthcare to date given siloed datasets and limited analytics."

"The initial analysis confirms so much of what we all believe: that the perception of experience is significantly related to clinical outcomes," said Dr. Adrienne Boissy, Chief Medical Officer, Qualtrics. "But the thoughtful rigor of this work and the near term potential to focus improvement efforts of hardworking teams, prioritize interventions, and demonstrate value in dollars and operational gains is even more compelling." 

A New Era of Healthcare Performance Measurement

Historically, healthcare organizations have relied on siloed, retrospective data to measure performance and patient satisfaction. This new partnership between Vizient and Qualtrics will introduce a dynamic, forward-looking approach, allowing healthcare organizations to proactively manage performance and address clinical challenges before they manifest in performance data and drive continuous improvement with dynamic, actionable metrics that evolve with changing patient expectations and clinical environments.

Ideal outcomes of the collaboration include:

• Anticipate Patient Outcomes: Harness patient feedback to predict clinical and operational outcomes, such as readmission rates, length of stay, and adverse clinical outcomes.;
• Close the Gap Between Experience and Performance: Identify correlations between patient and clinical outcomes, providing healthcare leaders with the insights needed to address care gaps before they impact performance.
• Develop Modern Experience Measurement: Define key elements of modern patient experience measurement that reflect real time performance, patient reported outcomes, and align to patient centered principles.

Foundational Analyses with Leading Health Systems

An initial analysis of clinical and patient experience data from mutual clients University of Utah Health, Memorial Hermann Health System, and Stanford Health Care demonstrates the power of patient experience to drive better healthcare outcomes.

Key findings included:

• Patients having a positive perception of communication with their caregivers was significantly associated with reductions in length of stay, 30-day readmissions, and emergency room visits.
• Among inpatients with limited healthcare access, those who did not feel that their preferences were considered in their discharge plan were more likely to visit the emergency department within 30 days.
• Better provider explanations could help mitigate the impact of adverse clinical events. Patients who rated provider explanations negatively exhibited significantly worse overall patient satisfaction when complications occurred, an effect that reversed when patients positively rated provider explanations.

Participating hospital leaders praised the collaboration and the insights delivered in the pilot.

"The combined analytics power of Qualtrics and Vizient allows us to break down data silos and gain actionable insights that directly enhance patient care," said Dan Lundergan, CEO at University of Utah Health Hospitals and Clinics. "By understanding the connections between quality measures and patient experiences, we are better equipped to deliver high-value, patient-centered healthcare."

"This collaboration is a transformative step forward for health care. The ability to integrate and analyze diverse data sets in meaningful ways will power even more focused improvement efforts, ultimately fulfilling our commitment to creating more value for patients and populations," said Memorial Hermann Health System COO, Erin Asprec.

"We're excited to participate in this innovative collaboration with Qualtrics and Vizient," said David Entwistle, President and CEO of Stanford Health Care. "By leveraging comprehensive data analysis, we can redefine patient experience and operational excellence, ensuring that every decision we make is closely aligned with our patients' needs and preferences."

Next Steps and Industry-Wide Application

Opportunities for other health systems to participate are expected to be rolled out following the completion of this initial phase with University of Utah Health, Memorial Hermann, and Stanford Health Care. The partnership will empower healthcare systems to take an innovative, data-driven approach to improving patient satisfaction and clinical outcomes, positioning them for long-term success in an increasingly value-based care environment.

About Vizient, Inc.

Vizient, Inc., the nation's largest provider-driven healthcare performance improvement company, serves more than 65% of the nation's acute care providers, including 97% of the nation's academic medical centers, and more than 35% of the non-acute market. The Vizient contract portfolio represents $140 billion in annual purchasing volume enabling the delivery of cost-effective, high-value care. With its acquisition of Kaufman Hall in 2024, Vizient expanded its advisory services to help providers achieve financial, strategic, clinical and operational excellence. Headquartered in Irving, Texas, Vizient has offices throughout the United States. Learn more at www.vizientinc.com.

About Qualtrics XM® for Healthcare

Qualtrics helps healthcare and life sciences organizations design experiences that improve satisfaction, loyalty, and trust. Qualtrics helps organizations deliver a seamless and compassionate healthcare experience by optimizing the moments that matter most to patients, employees, and communities. Qualtrics delivers the most comprehensive platform for strategic experience management, helping healthcare organizations listen to patients and employees on their terms, uncover what matters most and act quickly to create meaningful impact. In doing so, experience data can be paired with quality, operational and financial data to articulate real value. The AI-powered solutions help leaders understand the key drivers of patient and employee behavior, predict what they want and automate actions that make it faster, easier, and more efficient to personalize experiences at scale. Qualtrics is a CMS-approved vendor for all required CAHPS programs, and a HITRUST-certified and FEDRAMP-compliant experience management platform, so organizations can confidently collect and analyze data knowing sensitive information is secure. To learn more, please visit qualtrics.com/healthcare.

About Qualtrics

Qualtrics, the leader and creator of the experience management category, is a cloud-native software platform that empowers organizations to deliver exceptional experiences and build deep relationships with their customers and employees. With insights from Qualtrics, organizations can identify and resolve the greatest friction points in their business, retain and engage top talent, and bring the right products and services to market. Nearly 20,000 organizations around the world use Qualtrics' advanced AI to listen, understand, and take action. Qualtrics uses its vast universe of experience data to form the largest database of human sentiment in the world. Qualtrics is co-headquartered in Provo, Utah and Seattle. To learn more, please visit qualtrics.com.