While electronic health-record vendor Allscripts continues its fight for market share, it gained some ground in its internal battle against red ink, cutting its loss in half for the first quarter of 2015 compared with the same period last year despite a decline in revenue.
The Chicago-based company's revenue declined 2% to $334.6 million in the quarter ended March 31 compared with the first quarter of 2014. But its net loss narrowed to $10.1 million from $20.7 million last year.
The value of signed contracts for Allscripts' products and services were at a record high $236 million, up 6% quarter-over-quarter, the company said in a news release.
"While total revenue declined in the quarter, higher margin recurring revenue continues to grow year-over-year and constituted 77% of total revenue,” Allscripts CEO Paul Black said in the release. “We also maintained a disciplined focus on operating expenses, which helped drive a significant year-over-year increase in operating and free cash flows.”
Since last June, Allscripts—along with partners Hewlett-Packard Co. and Computer Sciences Corp.—has been in the hunt for a contract to replace the EHRs at the U.S. Defense Department's Military Health System, a global network of 56 hospitals and about 360 clinics. The Allscripts team is competing with bids from Epic Systems Corp. (teamed with IBM) and Cerner Corp. (with Liedos and Accenture). The contract could be awarded by summer.
Allscripts ranked No. 2—behind only Epic—among vendors of complete EHRs whose customers have been paid in the federal government's EHR incentive payment program for physicians and other eligible professionals, according to a Modern Healthcare analysis of federal program data conducted earlier this year.
But the company finished eighth, well behind both Epic (No. 1) and Cerner (No. 4) in the number of hospitals that have received payments for using Allscripts EHRs in their inpatient settings.
