Practice Fusion is raising the bar in the EHR space with its free, cloud-based platform that has just launched natively in the Apple and Android stores, making it the only vendor with a unified solution across all platforms—desktop, iOS and Android—that is Meaningful Use-certified.
AmericanEHR, a resource founded by the American College of Physicians, recently named it the top EHR for practices of one to three clinicians, and the company reports that it has grown a community of more than 112,000 active healthcare professionals.
Practice Fusion CEO and Founder Ryan Howard says the company has been driven by the advancement of value-based care.
"We've built the largest cloud-based platform," Howard says, "Value-based care only works in a cloud-based platform because you need all the data of all the patients and doctors."
The platform allows them to connect to major payer and hospital systems to analyze data, identify their sickest patients and intervene. "We do that on an epic scale; we managed 55 million patients last year," Howard says.
So what's next for what Howard touts as the fastest-innovating EHR?
Market position
Practice Fusion highlights the fact that it's the market share leader for small clinician practices of one to three providers, as determined by AmericanEHR. Howard notes that this market is not just a niche: According to the American Medical Association, almost 60% of physicians work in practices of 10 or fewer providers and 53% of physicians are self-employed.
"We definitely thrive there but also have practices of 10, 20—our largest practice is over 100—and we are moving upstream into larger practices," he says.
The company's success with smaller practices is partly due to the easier sell, Howard says. Independent practices can make decisions quickly, without the complication of obtaining a large consensus.
As Medscape notes via Thomas Stringham, founder and chief executive officer of Cientis Technologies, Practice Fusion's success with small practices can also be attributed to the issue of price. Small practices are typically the most cash-strapped so a free platform can be a no-brainer. "That's a big part of the company's ability to capture much of this market," said Stringham.
"To be fair, however, practices owned by large healthcare entities typically don't get to choose their own product, but have one mandated," Stringham adds.
Howard sees much of Practice Fusion's success as a result of its efforts in 2013 and 2014 to rebuild its platform from scratch.
"The challenge in the marketplace is that mobile is just ubiquitous, and none of the EMR technology is natively mobile," he says. "There are a bunch with half-hearted mobile applications, but it's not the full product and it's a different experience."
Given that all EHRs are complex to learn, it's jarring to have to switch back and forth when mobile versions are different, Howard says. He sees Practice Fusion's as clean, elegant, functional and ubiquitous.
Medscape notes that "Practice Fusion doesn't blow away the competition in the rating system devised by AmericanEHR Partners, but nevertheless holds its own." The vendor's is among the top 10 products listed in five of 10 rating categories: implementation experience, training, support experience, interfaces and purchase experience.
"Our conversion rate has gone up, customer satisfaction gone up dramatically—since we relaunched the product it's the highest it's been in over a year, and out attrition went down," Howard said. "We definitely are on an upswing on growth and user overall contentment."
Next moves
"The space is incredibly complex and on top of it, heavily regulated," Howard notes. "It's a challenge to innovate and you have to be willing to step on some glass. It's a perpetual challenge, and as you get larger it just gets more and more challenging."
Despite those challenges, the company is advancing into the telemedicine space, which Howard sees as a natural extension of the company's current services—a telemedicine visit inherently needs an electronic health record attached to it.
Practice Fusion acquired a telemedicine company last year that serves as an after-hours physician answering service. While many other telemedicine services have their work cut out recruiting physicians, Practice Fusion can tap into its EHR user base. It has the largest network of doctors online at a time, using their product, Howard says.
"When you dial in you will very soon be able to be connected to either your doctor or another doctor that's high quality," he says. "We have all the doctors' reviews, we have all the doctors' calendars, so we know if they're available or not, and we have your record, so you can transport it to the doctor that's serving you."
He adds that when that doctor writes a prescription, the system will check it against the patient's record for allergies and interactions, etc. to provide an additional layer of safety. Then, "after the doctor saves your updated record, your personal record is updated in your phone app, and your main doctor will be updated as well."
Howard says the service will be launching within months, and projects that it will be the largest in the country within the next year.
In addition to telemedicine, Practice Fusion is also working on specialty functionality for areas such as OB-GYN, oncology and cardiology.