EMR Sales Nearly Double in 2009 from 2008

OREM, UT, September 21, 2010 (Press-News.org) Healthcare technology research firm KLAS today announced its eighth annual clinical market share report, which details the wins and losses of acute care electronic medical record (EMR) vendors at large hospitals with more than 200 beds.

The KLAS report, "CIS Purchase Decisions: Riding the ARRA Wave", reflects data collected from more than 1,600 hospitals with more than 200 beds in the United States and Canada. During the challenging economy in 2008 EMR sales reached a seven-year low, but purchases nearly doubled in 2009 reflecting the increased attention EMR systems have received since the stimulus announcement.

"Changes in the CIS market place as a result of ARRA seem to have blindsided some vendors and left them struggling to stay afloat in the large hospital market," stated report author Jason Hess. "In 2009 Eclipsys, GE, McKesson Horizon, and QuadraMed all lost more hospitals than they gained; they are struggling to regain lost ground."

Three prominent provider concerns emerged in the research regarding CIS decisions: integration, clinical adoption and reliability. Organizations not only want a truly integrated system that clinicians will actually use; they want a vendor that can be a consistent and reliable partner in their efforts to reach meaningful use. Hess continued, "Nearly 70 percent of the new 2009 hospital purchases in the report are an Epic or a Cerner integrated solution."

Although they did not realize the same increases as Epic and Cerner, MEDITECH and Siemens both saw limited growth of their currently marketed solutions. MEDITECH users share concerns that MAGIC and early C/S platforms do not provide the features and functionality needed to meet meaningful use requirements and that there may not be enough time available for MEDITECH clients to implement C/S v.6 and meet the coming deadlines. Siemens Soarian growth continues slowly, but Siemen's overall footprint in the market is shrinking as providers replace the legacy solution Invision with another system.

Recent and pending changes in the market segment may shift the EMR purchase pendulum. McKesson's Paragon product was originally developed for a community hospital environment, but sold to more large hospitals in 2009 than its Horizon solution did. The recent Eclipsys acquisition of Allscripts may be a catalyst that will affect the product offering and its success. Some providers are looking forward with cautious optimism to GE's release of Quilibria, the result of collaboration with Intermountain Healthcare, even with GE's customer satisfaction rating decreasing by five points in 2009.

To learn more about the acute care EMR market, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of participating vendors, the report "CIS Purchase Decisions: Riding the ARRA Wave" is available to healthcare providers online for a significant discount off the standard retail price. To purchase the full report, healthcare providers and vendors can visit www.KLASresearch.com/reports.

KLAS is a research firm specializing in monitoring and reporting the performance of healthcare vendors. KLAS' mission is to improve delivery, by independently measuring vendor performance for the benefit of our healthcare provider partners, consultants, investors and vendors. Working together with executives from more than 4,500 hospitals and over 2,500 clinics, KLAS delivers timely reports, trends and statistics, which provide a solid overview of vendor performance in the industry. KLAS measures the performance of software, professional services and medical equipment vendors. For more information, go to www.KLASresearch.com, email marketing@KLASresearch.com or call 1-800-920-4109 to speak with a KLAS representative.