The analytics market is exploding across the entire healthcare spectrum, according to a new report from Chilmark Research. But as long-term care operators and other operators seek to harness Big Data to uncover new opportunities, the combination of a fragmented market and provider confusion over the most effective analytics strategies appears to be slowing vendor innovation.

“Vendors can be roughly divided into two categories: best-of-breed and platform-play vendors depending on their particular products and marketing strategies,” writes analyst Cora Sharma in the report. “It is currently a best-of-breed market, with providers adapting vendor solutions to meet a particular need created by a specific payment contract. Vendors aspiring to become enterprise-wide platforms find ‘enterprise-thinking’ healthcare organizations in short supply.”