The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) recently announced a partnership with KLAS Enterprises, a research firm, to accelerate and enhance industry performance and support all stakeholders in healthcare transformation.

The partnership will be effective on Jan. 1, 2015, and will include expanded research, benchmarking, award collaboration and advocacy support. KLAS will serve as CHIME's primary research organization, and will work closely with CHIME for best practice information sharing and health IT research.

"Like KLAS, CHIME is dedicated to helping our members and vendor partners perform at the highest level," said CHIME Board Chair Randy McCleese in a statement. "This mutually beneficial partnership will help strengthen our commitment to industry high-standards in patient care quality, efficiency and safety."

"Providers want to be heard and counted. Working together with CHIME, we can better amplify the provider voice to help healthcare vendors align their delivery to achieve provider organization success,” said Kent Gale, founder of KLAS.