The great EHR market shakeout

Tom Sullivan | Government Health IT | September 3, 2013

...The EHR landscape, peppered with software programs that for reasons technological as well as proprietary or financially-driven do not interoperate, integrate or even interface with each other, will get better in time, of course, as most markets invariably do — but when?

...Indeed, the EHR market is “agitated” and “unstable” according to a report published in late July by Black Book. Based on Black Book’s and other firms’ research little doubt remains that many healthcare organizations are either planning to or are already in the process of switching EHR vendors. It’s worth noting that Black Book targeted replacement EHR buyers in its polling of 2,880 — and 81 percent of respondents are, in fact, planning to drop one EHR in favor of a newer model.

Against the backdrop of so many healthcare organizations looking to switch EHRs and, in so doing, considering a relatively small number of vendors, do the Black Book findings essentially foreshadow the market consolidation that so many people seem to be anticipating? The idea being that fewer EHR makers will survive but their products will be stronger, both more usable and interoperable than what exists today...

Open Health News' Take: 

Great article in by Tom Sullivan in Government Health IT. He quotes CIO Mike Taylor of Roper St. Francis health network saying "My hope is that there are several guys in a garage right now coding the next EHR. I hope somebody, somewhere is working to build the ultimate EHR because I just don’t see it out there right now.” I think it's out there. One place to look for a better EHR is in the open source health IT arena. Check out VistA, OpenEMR, OpenMRS, OSCAR and several other 'open' EHR solutions. They are well accepted, widely deployed, and steadily spreading across the U.S. and around the world.  -  Peter Groen, Senior Editor, OHNews