Dive Brief:
- Meditech rolled out a new cloud-based EHR for critical access hospitals.
- Called Meditech-as-a-Service, the integrated EHR solution aims to increase workplace efficiency improve quality of care. MaaS is available via a monthly subscription, making it cost-effective for smaller hospitals.
- The Westwood, Mass.-based EHR vendor said it will operate MaaS in a centrally hosted private cloud infrastructure and provide upgrades and maintenance.
Dive Insight:
The MaaS suite of tools includes Meditech’s Web EHR with interoperability tools, clinical decision support, patient access, revenue cycle and more. Critical access hospitals should be able to get up and running with the system within six months, according to Meditech.
One of the things that makes cloud-based EHR so attractive for small hospitals is its pay-as-you-go model. Organizations lease computer time from the vendor versus laying out capital expenditures for the actual hardware.
The company follows other EHR vendors that are targeting the smaller hospital market with cloud-based subscription EHR options.
In March, Epic announced it was developing less-expensive, scaled-down versions of its EHR system. Compared with Epic’s full enterprise All Terrain EHR, these will offer smaller application and feature scopes, lower price points and shorter project timelines.
Small hospitals have been catching up in the digital world, accounting for nearly 80% of EHR purchases in the U.S. last year, according to KLAS Research. A majority of them selected Cerner Community Works for its breadth of functionality and integration. Other popular choices were Epic Community Connect, which allows small standalone hospitals to connect with nearby Epic hospitals, and cloud-based athenahealth.