Dive Brief:
- Black Book Research has released the rankings of the top EHR systems for different medical specialties.
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Users were asked to rank the systems based on operational excellence in 18 performance areas, Becker's Hospital Review reported.
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The specialties include cardiology, neurology, urology, internal medicine and emergency medicine.
Dive Insight:
The federal government has been strongly encouraging the adoption of EHRs and a lot of progress has been made on this front over the past few years. More and more clinicians are using EHRs. But as vendors continue to release more systems, it has become increasingly difficult for clinicians to find the right one for their practice.
Earlier this year, data released by the CDC showed 86.9% of office-based physicians in the U.S. are using EHRs. Office-based cardiologists have the highest rate of EHR adoption (95.6%), followed by neurologists (94.5%) and urologists (94%), according to the CDC data.
Improving interoperability and establishing national policies for exchanging health data could lead to even more widespread adoption. In addition, vendors still have a long way to go to improve the usability of their systems.
Research has shown that EHR use is a big contributor to physician burnout. Physicians are currently spending about half (49.2%) of their workday on EHR and administrative tasks, compared to 27% of their time spent seeing patients, a recent study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found. The systems have to be updated to comply with 2015 certification requirements, but provider groups like the American Medical Association and state medical societies are urging the CMS to move the deadline back to January 2019 to avoid hurried upgrades, lack of training and disrupting practices.
Black Book's new EHR rankings include systems from a number of different vendors. Here are the rankings for the specialties with the highest EHR adoption rates as reported by the CDC:
Cardiology:
- Athenahealth
- Epic
- Allscripts
Neurology:
- AdvancedMD
- Practice Fusion
- NextGen HealthFusion
Urology:
- Modernizing Medicine
- IntrinsiQ Meridian Urology
- iSALUS
For internal medicine and emergency medicine the rankings are:
Internal medicine:
- NextGen HealthFusion
- Practice Fusion
- CareCloud
Emergency medicine:
- T-System EV
- EPIC ASAP ED
- Cerner Millennium