Becker's Hospital Review

34 CIO / HEALTH IT Epic, Cerner Hold 50% of Hospital EMR Market Share: 8 Things to Know By Anuja Vaidya I n 2016, Epic and Cerner led the EMR market space for acute care hospitals in the United States, with Meditech follow- ing close behind, according to the "KLAS US Hospital EMR Market Share 2017." e data in this study is based on acute care EMR purchasing activity that occurred in the U.S. from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2016. Here are eight things to know: 1. Epic held 25.8 percent of the U.S. acute care hospital market share, with Cerner (24.6 per- cent) and Meditech (16.6 percent) coming in a close second and third. 2. All other EMR vendors held 10 percent or less of the market share. 3. irteen of 23 contracts for integrated delivery networks (multi-hospital organiza- tions) went to Epic. 4. Small community hospitals — with less than 200 beds — drove EMR purchasing de- cisions in 2016, accounting for 80 percent of all hospital EHR decisions in the country. 5. e increase in EMR adoption by small hospitals was fueled by the community-spe- cific platforms from Cerner and Epic; acqui- sition and EMR-standardization activity of larger organizations; as well as an increased interest in athenahealth's new offering. 6. However, customers did complain about the lack of customization capabilities in both Epic and Cerner platforms. 7. While Cerner proved to be the most pop- ular vendor among small hospitals in 2016, athenahealth grew the most. 8. e number of hospitals that contract- ed with athenahealth more than doubled in 2016, and one-third of the new hospitals had more than 25 beds. n Athenahealth CEO Jonathan Bush: Trump, High Deductibles Played Role in Disappointing Q1 By Jessica Kim Cohen A thenahealth shares dropped 17 percent on April 28 after the company posted its 2017 first quarter finan- cial results, according to the Boston Business Journal. In its financial results, athenahealth opted to adjust its full- year revenue projections based on its lower-than-expected first quarter performance. The company reported $285.4 million in revenue with a net loss of $1.4 million, due to low claims and collections revenues and a lack of new clients. During an April 23 conference call, athenahealth CEO and Co-Founder Jonathan Bush suggested the company's disap- pointing first quarter was also partially attributable to uncer- tainty in the healthcare industry. He noted people are unsure how President Donald Trump will change federal healthcare laws, Boston Business Journal reports. Another factor negatively affecting business is high-deduct- ible health plans preventing consumers from accessing med- ical care, according to Mr. Bush. "Deductibles every year having materially larger share — ben- eficiaries with high deductibles have an increasingly higher share of the covered base, and so they're increasingly sheep- ish about going to the doctor, particularly in [the first quarter] when everybody's deductibles are refreshed," Mr. Bush said in the call, according to Boston Business Journal. n Vanderbilt University Medical Center Begins IT Overhaul, Epic Implementation By Anuja Vaidya N ashville, Tenn.-based Vanderbilt University Medical Center has launched its 18-month IT re- placement project called Epic Leap. The medi- cal center is replacing its current IT system with software from Epic. The overhaul will involve implementing Epic technol- ogy for a greater part of the medical center's clinical, administrative and billing services. The staff and facul- ty will switch to Epic software for numerous processes such as medical record-keeping, hospital scheduling and admissions, nursing documentation, outpatient prescribing, medication administration and hospital billing by November 2017. Eventually, patients will also engage with their health- care at VUMC via Epic software. The software will allow patients to interact with their healthcare pro- viders, schedule visits online and receive compre- hensive bills, rather than separate bills for hospital and professional services. "We're going to be really well prepared. And important- ly, we're going to look at how we can improve our pro- cesses of workflow as we install, so that everything is in sync," said Jeff Balser, MD, PhD, president and CEO of VUMC and dean of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, at the project launch. n

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