Dive Brief:
- Epic was once again named the top EHR vendor for large U.S. hospitals by KLAS Research in its annual awards. The giant vendor also won the category for ambulatory and post-acute care hospitals, as well as practice management. It's the 10th year in a row Epic has been on top of the list for its overall software suite.
- In imaging, Philips led in the cardiology category, followed by Siemens, Fujifilm and IBM Watson Health. Sectra led for large and small PACS or picture, archiving and communications systems.
- CPSI won the award for the most improved software product for its Evident Thrive Patient Management. According to KLAS, customer satisfaction for the product has risen by 25% over the past year. Cerner Practice Management had the most improved suite for small physician practices, with a reported 10% increase in satisfaction.
Dive Insight:
The widespread digitization of the healthcare setting over the past 20 years has led to a dizzying array of EHR systems and ancillary products. The movement has also made industry giants out of companies such as Cerner and Epic.
However, making sense of which EHR systems are the most effective is altogether another initiative to be undertaken by the provider community.
On the global side, Epic also took top honors for acute care in Europe. Allscripts won in the same category for Canada, while Cerner's Millennium PowerChart took the honors in Africa/Middle East. For PACS systems, VISUS JiveX won in Europe, while Spectra won in Canada and PaxeraHealth won in Africa/Middle East.
In imaging, Philips also nabbed the top spot in universal viewers, with IBM at third and GE Healthcare at fourth. Philips has focused itself on health tech in recent years as it split off other units. Last year, the three health units accounted for 98% of the company's sales.
The findings come as Epic has drawn fire from patient advocates and some physicians for an attempt to scuttle a final HHS proposed rule that would require EHR systems to be able to share data with third-party apps.
Meanwhile, Allscripts recently admitted that it took payments to put physician cues into its systems to encourage doctors to prescribe opioid medications.
