What is KLAS? Your questions answered

When this industry analyst talks, the Healthcare IT world listens  

In February 2025, athenahealth was honored to receive three Best in KLAS¹ awards from KLAS Research, including Overall Independent Physician Practice Suite Vendor. Shortly thereafter, in June, we were recognized with a KLAS Points of Light² award for our real-time data exchange work in partnership with Humana and Your Health. These wins bring athenahealth’s total to 42 Best in KLAS awards and three K2 Collaborative Points of Light awards over the past 19 years. We couldn’t be more proud to be recognized by this leader in Healthcare IT research and analysis.

Unless you’re a Healthcare IT professional yourself, you may be wondering: who is KLAS Research, why does the industry prize these recognitions, and why should you factor them in when you’re shopping for healthcare software solutions and services? Simply put, when you see KLAS award medallions, you’ve found the solutions that healthcare providers prefer. Read on and get to know this valuable third-party resource.

What is KLAS Research?

Founded by four industry insiders in 1996, KLAS Research is an independent team of Healthcare IT reviewers, researchers, and analysts whose mission is “to improve the world’s healthcare through insights, collaboration, and transparency.” To gather information, their researchers conduct in-depth interviews with healthcare professionals to understand how they use HIT solutions, what their pain points are, and what they’d like to see. The company reports that 95% of KLAS surveys are collected via phone interview.³

The U.S. healthcare industry relies on KLAS for its unbiased reports and analyses of software and vendors. The annual Best in KLAS awards are its best-known accolades, while the KLAS Points of Light awards recognize partnerships and collaborations that improve patient outcomes while reducing the cost of care.

What are the Best in KLAS awards?

With awards in categories from Ambulatory & Post-Acute Care and Revenue Cycle Management to Healthcare Operations, Services & Consulting, and many others, the annual “Best in KLAS Awards – Software and Services Report” recognizes Healthcare IT vendors who actively work to help healthcare professionals improve patient care.

The winners are selected based on input from those most qualified to pass judgment: the vendors’ own customers. For the 2025 awards, KLAS Research gathered insights from approximately 30,000 interviews with clinicians and administrators who use HIT software and solutions every day. Anonymized feedback from KLAS surveys is included in the final report, which can be invaluable to medical practices looking for their peers’ candid opinions about the solutions they use. Awards are typically announced in late January or early February, and Best in KLAS award ceremonies are a popular highlight of annual industry conferences such as HIMSS and ViVE.

As the needs and interests of the healthcare industry change, KLAS Research realigns its award categories to reflect them. For 2025, KLAS updated or retired several Best in KLAS award segments, and added new categories for artificial intelligence, telehealth, and other new healthcare delivery services.⁴ If you’re an ambulatory medical practice researching solutions that can help you drive efficiency and performance, the award categories you should review at a minimum include Ambulatory EHR, Practice Management, and Small Practice Ambulatory EHR/Practice Management.

Paul Brient, Chief Product Officer at athenahealth, says, “The Best in KLAS awards are unique because they are based on direct user feedback. Being named 'Best in KLAS' is an incredible honor for athenahealth, but for us, what we find most valuable is the feedback from our customers – it, along with the analysis provided by KLAS, helps ensure that we are doing everything we can to provide even better service to our customers.”

What are the KLAS Points of Light awards?

Thoughtfully designed Healthcare IT solutions and services go a long way to support care quality, efficiency, and financial performance for medical practices and health systems. But it’s in our collaborations with others across the healthcare ecosystem that we can truly shine. The annual KLAS K2 Collaborative, A Payer/Provider Initiative, Points of Light Awards recognize successful partnerships between payers, provider organizations, and HIT vendors that are innovating together to reduce costs, eliminate inefficiency, and improve experiences for patients, providers, and payers.

To date, athenahealth and its payer and provider partners have been recognized with three KLAS Points of Light awards. In 2022, we were the only EHR provider to win a KLAS Points of Light award, thanks to our innovative bidirectional data exchange work conducted in partnership with Humana and Your Health (then known as SC House Calls). We were honored with another KLAS Points of Light award in 2024 alongside Humana, Availity, and Harmony Park Family Medicine for our case study, “Using FHIR Standards to Streamline Prior Authorization Management & Improve Patient Care.” And in 2025, we were recognized with Humana and Your Health for our case study, “Closing Care Gaps & Reducing the Administrative Burden through Improved Data Sharing.”

According to Greg LeGrow, Executive Director of Payer Product Strategy at athenahealth, “The true potential of data exchange lies in our ability to bridge the gap between payer organizations and medical practices to improve outcomes and reduce costs. The KLAS Points of Light awards call attention to our innovations and show the healthcare industry what’s possible. These collaborations help us innovate far beyond what any of us could accomplish alone, as we create a closed-loop system that empowers providers with actionable insights in the moment of care.”

Shopping for HIT solutions? Make the most of KLAS insights

KLAS Research is unparalleled in its scope, and awards such as Best in KLAS and KLAS Points of Light are respected throughout the Healthcare IT industry. Whether you’re a medical practice considering Healthcare IT solutions or a payer looking to solve data exchange challenges, KLAS Research’s awards and other reports can provide valuable insights for your decision-making process.

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