I regularly am asked what the market share of the various EMR companies is. Unfortunately, I think this is an impossible question to answer even if people would love to know the top EMR vendors. EMR vendors just don’t publish the number of EMR implementations they have for strategic purposes (usually). Plus, those that do publish numbers aren’t usually very truthful in the number they give out.
For example, they might say something like they have 500 offices using their EMR. Then, you’ll find out that they’ve actually only sold 20 offices and one of those has 250 actual offices. Then, you’ll find out that the they have 250 offices and plan to implement the EMR in all of those offices, but they’ve only done it in 2 pilot offices right now.
Another example, EMR vendors love to say that they have XXXXXX thousands of doctors using their system. Of course, what they don’t tell you is how many of those thousands of doctors used it once and left it. How many of those doctors only log in to write prescriptions. How many of those doctors only use 10% of the features of the EMR (hardly can be considered using an EMR). We really want to know how many doctors have that EMR, log into it every day and do almost every part of their work in the EMR. Even that’s a hard number to calculate. Should we count them if they print off their scripts or do they have to ePrescribe?
That’s why it’s really brave of Software Advice to try and estimate the EMR market share. No doubt the market share listed is off. I think the most significant number that’s off is likely the list of “Other EMR vendors.” There are 300+ EMR vendors and more being launched every day. I’m pretty sure that this other EMR vendor category actually dwarfs all of the EMR vendors that are on the list.
We just had a meeting on that very post. The conversations we had in that meeting were almost identical to everything you just said… SPY! 🙂
Some try very hard to be upfront and honest, others make it very difficult to stay honest.
Amen; yes its difficult to understand the ‘5 minute live’ concept. I agree with everything on the post; and while I do understand that the login IDs and number of registered users can be an yard stick, at the end of the day, its all about how many providers are fully using the system in its entirety or at least 80% of the systems capability.
EHR and associated modules including the lab interfaces w/ national labs, regional/local labs, etc., are an exercise by itself. Not counting the implementation and data migration related to Practice Management and Billing/Financial modules.
I don’t believe there will be any realistic and practical data on this available for quite some time to come.
Another realistic post from the authors addressing real life issues in the EHR space.
Brad,
Being a spy. What a great idea. Then, I’d get even more readers to my blog. I’ll have to look into that;-)
[…] guess that’s why I mostly just laugh when I see someone try to calculate the EMR vendor market share. The company with the largest EMR market share is called “Other” and includes the […]