Replacing Your EHR? You're Not Alone

By Katie Wike, contributing writer

According to a report from Kalorama, the market for replacement EHRs is expected to maintain steady growth over the next five years.

The market for replacing EHRs is expected to steadily increase at 7 to 8 percent over the next five years. This prediction is according to Kalorama and is a result of its study, EMR 2015: The Market for Electronic Medical Records.

According to EHR Intelligence, many providers choose to upgrade their systems while others noted dissatisfaction stemming from lack of key features, a cumbersome and complex interface, poor EHR usability, and bad hardware.

“There might be a thought now that everyone has their EMR now so the market won't grow, but I'd argue against that,” said Bruce Carlson, Publisher of Kalorama Information in a press release. “There are upgrades, vendor switches, and still untapped physician markets for web-based products. That being said, it's like any other software market now that the direct incentives are over and as such, vendors need to sell on value.”

Many providers are not only switching technologies, but also vendors. “Kalorama thinks this will have an overall positive impact on the market as new vendor replacement contracts will involve new training, implementation and consulting fees,” explained the release. In fact, one of six providers plans to change vendors. Most commonly, organizations cited that their reason for considering a switch was that the software did not meet the practice's needs.

According to Kalorama, “Approximately perhaps a third of hospitals with EMRs are dissatisfied with their purchase and vendor interviews reported that several have looked into replacing their current vendor. The switch market won't consist of a third of the market however; because the cost of changing systems is so high, many hospitals have resigned themselves to their current EHR system.”