Report: Practice Fusion Voted No. 1 Overall EHR In ‘Year Of The EHR Switch'

The free electronic health record (EHR) solution wins the top ranking from more than 16,800 EHR users surveyed, one out of six of whom wish to switch EHRs this year, according to Brown-Wilson report.

Practice Fusion, the largest physician-patient platform in the US, has been voted the No. 1 EHR across all specialties and practice sizes in the 2013 State of the Ambulatory Electronic Health Records Replacement Market survey independently conducted by Brown-Wilson’s Black Book Rankings. For the third year in a row, the EHR also took the top spot for primary care customer satisfaction, e-prescribing functionality and Meaningful Use user achievement.

The across-the-board honors came in a year termed the “Year of the Great EHR Switch” by the Brown-Wilson group, due to the large number of respondents who expressed dissatisfaction with their current EHR. Nearly one in three respondents reported wanting to switch EHRs, with more than half of those planning to do so in the next year. Brown-Wilson, in its report, concluded that “EHR market shifters now pose to reallocate more than $5B in sales as the unstable vendor marketplace heats up.”

“We provide a free EHR, free support and we listen to our users to constantly improve our product,” said Ryan Howard, CEO of Practice Fusion. “Other EHRs nickel-and-dime their users for expensive products that don’t evolve, with little support. Brown-Wilson’s report confirms the inevitable: there will be major shifts in the EHR market in the coming months.”

Key Facts on the Switching Market:

• Nearly one in three respondents expressed a desire to switch EHRs and another 35 percent of providers reported being neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with their current EHR
• 84 percent of those considering changing EHRs said vendor viability was a ‘must-have’ in any new EHR, suggesting that unviable EHR vendors are already limiting users
• While nearly 70 percent of hospitals report having a fully-functional EHR, only 29 percent of office-based practices do, indicating further opportunity in the ambulatory market

Key Facts on the EHR Vendor Rankings:

• Practice Fusion’s No. 1 overall rating includes customer satisfaction scores from primary care, specialists and practices of all sizes for various feature sets including practice management, mobile EHR applications and Meaningful Use attestation
• Practice Fusion was voted No. 1 in customer satisfaction among primary care doctors and No. 2 among medical specialties
• In the 2013 State of the e-Prescribing Industry report from earlier this year, Practice Fusion received a 97 percent satisfaction rate for its e-prescribing functionality
• Practice Fusion has the highest Meaningful Use achievement rate of all respondents, with 98.5 percent of participating users on track to meeting Stage 1 and 96.5 percent on track to meeting Stage 2
• The report included 480 EHRs, including athenahealth, Allscripts, eClinicalWorks, Epic and Greenway

Brown-Wilson Group invited over 300,000 health IT and EHR users to evaluate more than 600 medical software and service providers, including 480 EHRs. Responses from 16,800 medical professionals, IT specialists and other EHR users are used to rank EHR vendors across key performance indicators, including training, reliability and trust.

“In a year when underperforming EHRs are beginning to lose their market share, we are pleased to recognize Practice Fusion as the top overall EHR in the switching market and the top ranked EHR among primary care practices for the third year running,” said Doug Brown, senior partner and founder of Brown-Wilson Group. “Practice Fusion’s free EHR is ideally placed to take advantage of all the dissatisfied users who plan to switch in the coming months."

Reporters interested in more information on Practice Fusion and the Brown-Wilson 2013 State of the Ambulatory Electronic Health Records Replacement Market report are invited to contact media@practicefusion.com.

About Practice Fusion
Practice Fusion’s health platform delivers revolutionary technology to doctors and patients. Founded in 2005, the company disrupts the status quo by offering a free, web-based electronic medical record (EMR) system and complete practice management suite for physicians. In April 2013, the company launched its consumer-facing platform, Patient Fusion, where patients can find and book appointments with doctors and access their medical records. Practice Fusion is a driving force in modernizing American health care, used by a community of 150,000 medical professionals serving 66 million patients. The World Economic Forum recognized Practice Fusion as a Technology Pioneer in 2012. For more information ,  visit www.practicefusion.com.