Boards and executive buyers are raising the 2026 bar for all product and service rankings and this annual statement explains the standards Black Book applies to keep survey evaluations rigorous, independent and resistant to score chasing.
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS / ACCESS Newswire / December 20, 2025 / As part of its 15th annual, fourth‑quarter release cycle, Black Book Research today published its 2026 Methodology and Governance Statement describing how its healthcare IT Top Vendor rankings are produced and maintained. The statement affirms a core principle of ethical, comprehensive, longitudinal market research: comparative findings must be grounded in verified user experience, governed transparently, and structurally protected from commercial influence so results remain credible, comparable, and decision‑useful across markets and time.
In a crowded rankings and intelligence landscape, Black Book's annual statement is intended to help boards, executive buyers, and investors evaluate the methodological strength behind any vendor ranking they use. Black Book encourages stakeholders to treat rankings as decision support that should be accompanied by disclosed methods, validation controls, and evidence that holds up beyond a single assessment cycle.
Black Book also frames its research outputs as applied competitive intelligence, enabling healthcare stakeholders to benchmark vendors, evaluate performance movement over time, and identify strengths and gaps at the KPI level, supporting evidence‑based decision‑making across procurement, governance, and strategic planning on a platform designed on Google's Looker allowing for predictive and collaborative vendor selection insights, unmatched for IT buyers in the market research industry.
''"In healthcare IT, rankings influence shortlists, procurement pace, and executive confidence," said Kat Johnson, spokesperson for Black Book Research. "Recognition must be earned through verified user experience, measured consistently, and insulated from commercial influence, so the user's top choice reflects the buyer's priorities and operating context, not a one‑size‑fits‑all conclusion."
Black Book participates in global research and insights communities, including ESOMAR (International), The Insights Association (USA) , and The Market Research Society (UK), reflecting alignment with established worldwide professional standards and methodological discipline.
Why Black Book refreshes methodology annually
Black Book's annual refresh cycle is informed by a widely recognized measurement principle often referred to as Goodhart's Law: once a measure becomes a target, it can become less effective as a measure. In vendor rankings, stable rubrics can unintentionally encourage optimization for what performs well in the scoring system rather than what consistently delivers implementation success, operational reliability, service responsiveness, and realized value after contract signature. Over time, a ranking can drift toward measuring "ability to rank" instead of "ability to deliver".
Black Book's approach is designed as a practical countermeasure. By maintaining year‑round validity, applying audit-supported validation, and refining KPI definitions and weightings on a defined cadence, Black Book seeks to keep measurement anchored to verified user experience and measurable qualitative KPIs.
In 2026, Black Book encourages boards, executive buyers, investors, and vendors to differentiate between programs that primarily build visibility and those that provide decision‑grade measurement and competitive intelligence, and to place trust and greater weight on transparent methods that can be tested, explained, and validated.
Board and executive due diligence checklist for any vendor ranking
The twelve established rules of independent assessments that are always recommended to boards and executive sponsors is to use the following questions to evaluate the decision‑readiness of any vendor ranking methodology:
Is the methodology published in a form that allows independent understanding, not just marketing summaries and client/vendor anecdotals?
Are evaluation criteria refreshed on a defined cadence to prevent long-term overfitting to a static rubric?
Are the KPIs explicitly defined, and do they measure outcomes that matter post‑signature (implementation success, support performance, reliability, value realization) rather than primarily claims or optics?
How are respondents sourced, and is the sample diversified beyond vendor‑provided references or time‑boxed campaigns?
Are responses verified with multi‑layer integrity controls (validity, origin, response‑pattern checks, experience qualifiers)?
Are respondents compensated openly and if so, how is incentive bias managed and disclosed?
Is the scoring window year‑round and available in point‑in‑time, or limited to one single annual cycle that can shape predictable performance timing?
Are statistical confidence thresholds, minimum sample thresholds, or confidence bands disclosed so users can interpret the strength of differences?
Can buyers adjust weighting to reflect their risk profile and operating priorities, or does the ranking impose a universal scoring model?
Are there third‑party audits or independent validation steps, and are they described clearly?
Are governance safeguards in place so vendors cannot preview instruments, influence scoring logic, or secure preferential visibility through participation structures, as in providing their hand-picked client respondents?
Are research conclusions structurally independent of vendor relationships, paid media placement, subscriptions, performance improvement programs, association sponsorships, or compensated advisory boards?
2026 methodology highlights
Global comparability: International surveying since 2004, with evaluation coverage across 147 countries and approximately 2,000 vendors.
Longitudinal scale: Nearly 4 million healthcare IT satisfaction responses since 2011, including approximately 300,000 global HIT user responses in 2025.
More diagnostic measurement:36 KPIs per vendor comprising 18 corporate‑level qualitative KPIs plus 18 product, service, or engagement‑specific KPIs.
Year‑round validity: Point‑in‑time scoring maintained throughout the year, not confined to a single annual survey cycle.
Buyer‑weighted outputs: Users can weight KPIs to reflect fit‑for‑purpose priorities and risk tolerance.
Competitive intelligence utility: KPI‑level datasets support benchmarking, performance movement tracking, and comparative gap analysis by segment and geography.
Independence and integrity controls: Modern survey methods and diversified respondent sourcing (mobile‑enabled approaches, Qualtrics, third‑party panels), multi‑layer validation (origin and IP signals, corporate email checks, response‑pattern controls), and third‑party auditing and validation (e.g., Code Score) supported by participation without vendor subscriptions and a report‑licensing‑only revenue model.
Methodology and governance details
Global coverage that supports cross‑market comparability: Black Book is not U.S.‑centric. It has surveyed IT and outsourcing services vendors internationally since 2004, with current evaluation coverage spanning 147 countries and approximately 2,000 vendors-supporting analysis across diverse care models, regulatory environments, and operating conditions.
Scale that improves reliability and segment‑level insight: Black Book reports nearly 4 million healthcare IT user satisfaction responses collected since 2011, including approximately 300,000 responses in 2025. At scale, satisfaction measurement becomes more resilient to outliers and more useful for segment‑specific comparisons (provider, payer, ambulatory) and operational context. Balanced with historicals on a platform designed and managed through Google's Looker program.
A more diagnostic measurement model using 36 KPIs per vendor: Black Book evaluates vendor performance using 36 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): 18 corporate‑level qualitative KPIs reflecting enterprise performance and longitudinal experience, and 18 KPIs specific to the product, service, or engagement reflecting deployment‑level performance. This structure is designed to distinguish corporate performance from the lived experience of a specific platform, module, service line, or outsourced engagement.
Year‑round validity for point‑in‑time decision support: Scores are designed to remain current throughout the year, not limited to a once‑a‑year survey cycle. This supports decision‑making aligned to implementations, upgrades, service transitions, acquisitions, and cybersecurity events that can materially shift satisfaction outside an annual window.
Buyer‑controlled weighting and fit‑for‑purpose ranking: Users can weight the 36 KPIs to reflect organizational priorities such as implementation discipline, interoperability, support responsiveness, usability, reliability, and value realization. This supports fit‑for‑purpose comparisons across varying operating constraints and risk tolerances.
Competitive intelligence as an applied differentiator: Black Book's KPI‑level structure and breadth of coverage are positioned for competitive intelligence use cases including benchmarking within and across vendor categories, identifying comparative strengths and weaknesses by segment and geography, tracking performance movement over time at corporate and engagement levels, and informing stakeholder narratives with evidence.
Modern surveying, diversified respondent sourcing, and verification controls: Black Book uses mobile‑enabled surveying, reputable third‑party survey infrastructure (e.g., Qualtrics), and multiple third‑party panels and sub‑surveyors to expand reach and increase respondent diversity. Vendors are free to encourage clients to participate; however, Black Book states responses are validated across multiple qualifiers designed to protect integrity and deter duplication or inauthentic submissions, including origin and IP signals, corporate email validity, response‑volume and pattern checks, and vendor‑evaluation controls and experience qualifiers. Third‑party auditing and validation (e.g., RevScore) is cited as an additional confidence mechanism.
Participation without subscriptions and no‑fee briefings to keep databases current: Vendors are not required to subscribe or pay to be evaluated. Black Book requests regular briefings to keep product and services information current; the firm states these briefings carry no fees and that reporting is intended to be transparent and method‑driven.
No pay‑to‑play levers and no improvement‑to‑recognition programs: Black Book does not run vendor improvement programs tied to recognition and does not use long‑term commercial arrangements that protect placement. Rankings are intended to remain responsive to measured satisfaction performance as it changes.
Straightforward business model aligned to independence: Black Book states its revenue model is limited to report licensing for detailed survey findings across the 36 KPIs. The firm states there are no consulting fees, extended research fees, add‑on charges, advertising, advertorials, or pay‑for‑placement media dependency. Black Book also reports distributing multiple complimentary research reports to industry stakeholders, including media and investors.
Read the full extended statement attached.
More Details available at :
Substack (full story): https://blackbookresearch.substack.com/p/black-book-research-clarifies-what
Medium (full story): https://medium.com/@dougbrown727/black-book-research-clarifies-what-sets-its-top-vendor-lists-apart-in-healthcare-it-rankings-6b19a04861d8?postPublishedType=initial
About Black Book Research
Black Book Research is an independent healthcare market research firm specializing in client satisfaction, performance benchmarking, competitive intelligence, and vendor rankings across healthcare IT, outsourcing, and services. The firm has conducted international surveying activity since 2004 and reports current evaluation coverage spanning 147 countries. Black Book Research is a seven‑time Inc. 5000 honoree and a two‑time Business Intelligence Group SAMMY Award winner for innovation in marketing and research technology in the small firm category, reflecting ongoing investment in modern surveying, auditing, and reporting outcomes for a global audience.
Black Book's mission is to advance better healthcare outcomes and affordability by strengthening how technology and services decisions are informed, supporting providers, payers, and healthcare organizations in selecting solutions that improve performance, efficiency, and reliability for the communities they serve. The firm is committed to ethical, transparent, and methodologically disciplined market research with an emphasis on verified user experience, clear governance, and research practices designed to protect the integrity of comparative findings.
Complimentary industry reports and additional research are available at https://www.blackbookmarketresearch.com.
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SOURCE: Black Book Research
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