5 EHR vendors lead pack in ambulatory-care niche

More than 135,000 physicians, dentists, optometrists, podiatrists and chiropractors working in ambulatory care have relied on just five vendors of complete electronic health-record systems to help them achieve meaningful use under Medicare's electronic health record incentive payment program, federal data show.

These five EHR developers and their market shares are Epic Systems Corp., 21.7%; Allscripts, 11.1%; eClinicalWorks, 7.5%; NextGen Healthcare, 6.8%; and GE Healthcare, 5.7%. Together, their software is used by 52.7% of the 257,512 physicians and other eligible professionals who have become meaningful users of a complete EHR in an ambulatory-care setting and been paid by the government's incentive program, according to data from the CMS and HHS' Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.

Complete EHRs are the most commonly used health information technology tool used by physicians and these other eligible professionals to meet Medicare's meaningful-use targets.

The top five vendors and their rankings in this category remain unchanged from a Modern Healthcare analysis reported in May.

The rest of the market is split among the remaining 439 vendors who have had at least one customer achieve meaningful use and get paid by the federal government. The top 25 vendors control 79.9% of this key market niche, federal data shows.

Cerner Corp., with 12,404 customers receiving Medicare incentive payments, is the market leader in providing so-called modular components of an EHR for physicians and other professionals. Modular EHRs, which are systems where component parts are pieced together to create of an effective whole EHR, are the second most popular tools for achieving meaningful use. Cerner has a 31.6% chunk of this market niche in which 39,267 providers have been paid.

Intermountain Healthcare ranks second with 15.5%. Chicago-based Allscripts ranks third, at 13.7%. But when all assets are combined, with the addition of its acquired subsidiaries Jardogs and dBMotion, Allscripts pushes into the No. 2 position.

For the 4,597 eligible professionals who have received Medicare incentive payments for complete EHR systems in inpatient settings, the top five vendors are Epic Systems, 45.3%; GE Healthcare, 22.9%; Cerner, 20.5%; Allscripts, 6.1%; and NextGen, 2.3%.

Cerner, with a 70.7% market share, dominates among the 2,359 eligible professionals who have been paid Medicare EHR incentive payments using modular EHRs in inpatient settings, followed by Allscripts, 14.6% and Meditech, 7.9%.

According to the August report from the CMS (PDF), 316,143 physicians and other professionals, or 60% of the estimated 527,200 total who are eligible, have been paid nearly $6.55 billion thus far under the Medicare, Medicare Advantage and Medicaid EHR incentive payment programs.

Meanwhile, 4,098 hospitals, or nearly 82% of the estimated 5,011 eligible hospitals, have received nearly $9.7 billion in EHR incentive payments. Combined, that brings the total federal outlay for all EHR incentive programs under the ARRA to just over $16.2 billion.

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