NRC Health

Good morning or good afternoon all, and welcome to the National Research Corporation First Quarter Earnings Call. My name is Adam and I'll be your operator today. If you'd like to ask a question during the Q&A portion of today's call, you may do so by pressing star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I will now hand the floor to Linda Stacey to begin. So Linda, please go ahead when you are ready.

Thank you, Adam, and welcome everyone to National Research Corporation's 2024 First Quarter Earnings Call. My name is Linda Stacey, the company's Principal Financial Officer And joining me on the call today are Mark Scudder from our Executive Leadership Team and Helen Hurdy, our Chief Customer Officer. Before we continue, I'd like to point out this conference call includes forward-looking statements related to the company that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or outcomes to differ materially from those currently anticipated. These forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. For further information about the facts that could affect the company's future results, please see the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. With that, I'll turn it over to Mark.

Thanks, Linda. Today we'll talk about markets and strategy, and then organizational changes and investments, and then our financial results and outlook. To start, we have big financial goals over the next several years. First, doubling our total addressable market through portfolio additions, acquisitions, and partnerships. Second, double-digit annual revenue growth. Third, expanding our margins. And fourth, creating significant value for investors. The leadership team is highly aligned to these goals and we're very motivated to deliver. And the strategy for doing that is to combine historical strengths, healthcare DNA founded on decades of benchmarks and trusted thought leadership, unrivaled client service, and a mission-driven organization with an expanding portfolio of products and innovative new technologies. We think the combination of technology and specific healthcare insights is important in our market and to enhance outcomes and experiences for everyone in the healthcare journey while improving our clients' bottom lines. Our clients generally come from the top 400 healthcare systems in the United States. They're under enormous pressure to improve health outcomes, control costs, retain qualified employees, and expand market share, all while dealing with increasing regulation. The challenge for patients and consumers of healthcare is no less significant as all of us navigate the changing landscape. For our clients, The projected value of patients has never been higher, measuring both estimated lifetime spend and as an influencer of other consumers' choice of their provider. At the same time, the cost of losing qualified caregiving associates has never been greater. Meanwhile, they have competition among healthcare systems and from new entrants like never before. There are correlations between consumer, patient, and associate experiences that impact loyalty, outcomes, and reputation. Therefore, the insights we deliver can improve lives and our clients' revenue and costs. We've talked with our clients, and the way we're going to do that is through a broader experience perspective, greater strategic alignment, innovation, and actionable insights that deliver more value. To deliver on these goals, we are filling portfolio gaps to provide enterprise-wide experience solutions offering clear thought leadership at a strategic level, applying a generative AI overlay across all of our solutions, and aggressively building our sales team and sales approach. We're already making progress on these goals. We'll soon be in the market with new tools and insights across patient customer and employee experience solutions. Our AI and product teams are working with customers to prioritize and roll out a new generation of solutions to enhance care and improve experiences, and we expect to be in the market with AI-enhanced healthcare-specific solutions later this year. We also have exciting developments in our associate team, which Helen will cover in a few minutes. And one last thing I'd like to mention is pace. One of our key organizational themes is now. We're accelerating decision-making and streamlining as many processes as possible. This benefits our clients and our associates as more resources are devoted to high value activities and the successes compound. With the changes and investments we're making, we believe we're well positioned to capitalize on all of our goals. And now I'll turn it over to Helen.