Medscape EHR Report 2014 reveals the top 5 most widely used EHRs by physicians
Epic, Cerner, Allscripts, eClinicalWorks and NextGen have been named the most widely used EHRs by physicians, according to Medscape’s EHR Report. Epic continues to dominate the EHR market for hospitals and health systems with 37% of users, nearly three times as many as Cerner with 13% of hospital users. eClinicalworks was rated first in usage (10%) and NextGen and PractieFusion tied for second place with 8% each for independent practices.
The Medscape EHR 2014 Report surveyed 18,500 physicians in 25 specialties on their use of EHRs rating their systems in terms of overall ease of use, satisfaction and other performance traits. The survey found that outside of the top five EHR vendors, the difference in usage for other widely used EHRs is not large. eClinicalWorks, for example, is used by 6% of surveyed physicians, Practice Fusion by 3%, Amazing Charts by 1%, and e-MDs by 1%, reflecting a tight race for market position in the small to medium-size physician practice sector. Almost a quarter (22%) of physicians use systems other than those listed, among those cited more regularly by physicians were Aprima, Quest Diagnostics’ Care 360, CureMD, DocuTap, HealthFusion’s MediTouch, Kareo, and Medicat.
Top Rated EHRs
Physicians were asked to rate their EHRs by several key criteria, including ease of use, vendor support, overall satisfaction with the product, how well it connects with other systems, and usefulness as a clinical tool. The VA’s EHR: VA-CPRS was the highest-rated overall EHR by physicians, with a score of 3.9. Practice Fusion and Amazing Charts tied for second in the ratings for overall user satisfaction (3.7). Medent and e-MDs tied for third place in the ratings (3.5). The scores are based on rating of 5 is excellent, 4 equals good, 3 equals average, 2 is below average, and 1 is poor. No EHRs had an overall score of 4 or higher.
Other key findings include:
– Amazing Charts and Practice Fusion, popular in smaller practices, also appear popular with physicians in hospitals and health systems using their entity’s EHR. However, EHRs designed for smaller practices aren’t used by hospitals.
– For many physicians, “ease of use” determines their overall perception and experience with the EHR, affecting patient interactions and time spent documenting.
– Amazing Charts, which is not used by hospitals and health systems but is more popular with smaller practices, was rated most highly, with a score of 4.0 for overall ease of use.
– Practice Fusion and VA-CPRS tied for second (3.9 each) in ease of use; both also scored highly in those attributes in 2012 EHR report.
– Practice Fusion was highest rated both in “adequacy of vendor training program” (3.7) and “vendor continuing customer service” (3.8), followed by Amazing Charts (3.5 and 3.8, respectively), VA-CPRS (3.5 and 3.6, respectively), e-MDs (3.4 and 3.3, respectively), and Medent (3.3 and 3.6, respectively).
– The three systems rated lower in vendor support,McKesson (2.7), Meditech (2.7), and NextGen (2.6) are office-based.
For more information, find the full report here
