Yesterday Medical Economics, the top business publication for physicians in the United States, released a novel report in its October 25, 2013 publication ranking the top 100 health information technology (HIT) companies with complete electronic health records (EHR) systems.
An estimated 729 companies offer EHR systems targeting healthcare providers. Though experts say the market is ripe for consolidation, the financial health of these companies remains the most important determinant for product development, innovation and the ability to meet the next challenges of interoperability posed by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology’s (ONC) EHR incentive program for Meaningful Use 2.
“The financial health of software vendors takes on major significance as these software systems become more robust and offer physicians far more capabilities in helping them manage disease conditions, medical data, patient populations and other key functions like billing, coding, patient communication through online portals, scheduling, and other areas,” says Daniel R. Verdon, Medical Economics group content director.
“If an EHR company merges and simply closes its doors as some leading consulting firms predict, we wanted to give physicians factual market intelligence and strategies to help them prepare to safely and efficiently migrate patient data to another system and vendor if necessary,” adds Georgiann Decenzo, executive vice president of Advanstar Medical Communications Group.
Some of the key metrics reported by Medical Economics in this report detail whether the systems are certified to meet the ONC criteria for Meaningful Use 2. Medical Economics’ full coverage looks at system capabilities including clinical decision support, scheduling and billing integration, e-prescribing, laboratory review, patient portal access, mobile applications, quality measure dashboard, instant messaging, health information exchange compatibility, claims reporting and training.
The top 10 EHR companies listed in this report include:
- Cerner Corporation
- Epic Systems Corporation
- Allscripts
- NextGen Healthcare Information Systems, Inc.
- athenahealth
- GE Healthcare
- eClinicalWorks
- McKesson
- Abraxas Medical Solutions (Merge Healthcare)
- Healthcare Solutions
To access the full report, go to http://medicaleconomics.modernmedicine.com/top-100-EHRs; download the Medical Economics app at the iTunes Store, or see the coverage in the October 25, 2013 issue of the publication.