03 Dec Epic Systems Squeaks to Top of Physician EHR Adoption List
Epic Systems is the number one vendor when it comes to physician EHR adoption, but it only barely beats out some of its close competitors for the top spot, according to a report from SK&A. While the mega-vendor is a frequent choice for large hospitals and health systems, taking best-in-show honors from KLAS Research for nine out of the past ten years, Epic has not yet secured total dominance on the physician side. The highly fragmented market has left a number of other vendors nipping at Epic’s heels, including eClinicalworks, Allscripts, and Practice Fusion, which have secured similar shares of the top 35% of physician customers.
In contrast to last year’s report, where the top ten vendors made up 53% of the physician EHR adoption market, this year’s research shows that just eight vendors have now scooped up the same proportion of providers. Epic, now at 11.6 percent of the overall market, has grown by more than 1 percent over last year’s numbers, while eClinicalworks has stayed steady at 10.2 percent, and Allscripts follows at 8.7 percent.
The next few vendors, including Practice Fusion, NextGen, GE, and Cerner, drop off from 6.7 percent to 3.5 percent, while other companies, including athenahealth, McKesson, Greenway, and MEDITECH, hover between one and two percent of market share. Overall adoption has increased from 61 percent to 62.8 percent of all responding providers, the report shows.
Quite notably, the top twenty vendors make up less than three-quarters of the physician EHR market. Twenty-seven percent of providers are using close to 500 different products that may be proprietary, specialty-specific, or small newcomers in the industry. Providers with one to three physicians were significantly more likely to be using one of these unknowns than larger organizations, with close to 30% of these small organizations adopting a product outside of the mainstream.