Dive Brief:
- The latest poll by Black Book Market Research, which researches the healthcare market and public opinion, puts Allscripts and athenahealth as the top vendors, for the third consecutive year, ranking highest in user satisfaction and client loyalty for ambulatory providers.
- Allscripts ranked first for larger provider groups that have 26 or more practitioners and independent practice groups and athenahealth for smaller physician groups with 6 to 10 physicians and 11 to 25 physicians.
- Marshfield Clinic Information Services, a subsidiary of Marshfield Clinic in Wisconsin, ranked top vendor among users in multispecialty clinics for the first time.
Dive Insight:
The poll showed that nearly 70% of providers using the above vendors' EHRs said there have been substantial clinical workflow improvements since 2014, yet interoperability burdens 33% of providers using other vendors' systems. The poll surveyed the experience of 33,000 EHR users over a period of five months.
Doug Brown, managing partner of Black Book, said in a statement that physician practices are re-evaluating their EHR systems due to concerns over vendor transparency and accountability.
User satisfaction with EHR products and vendors has turned around since 2013 when 92% of multi-speciality groups expressed dissatisfaction with them. The current poll showed 84% of physician practices with more than 25 practitioners said their EHR vendor is "meeting or exceeding" their expectations for EHR optimization.
The poll surveyed large physician group clients of EHR vendors with highest scores in customer experience in the areas of document management, productivity, practice administration, reporting, interoperability, order entry, and decision support.
Brown noted smaller practices have a disadvantage when it comes to health IT resources and will likely merge or form joint ventures to "meet the challenge of value-based care and acquiring the IT infrastructure needed to support it."
Yet during a recent Committee on Ways and Means subcommittee hearing, CMS Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt argued that small and solo practice have the ability to be just as successful as larger practices under the proposed Medicare Access & CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) implementation rule.