Ambulatory Specialty 2016
One Size Does Not Fit All

Author
Aaron Gleave

Author
Dan Czech

April 26, 2016 | Read Time: 1 minute

Specialty-specific EMRs continue to provide the best content for individual specialties, with PCC (pediatrics) and Modernizing Medicine (dermatology) setting the standard for their specialties. Most broad-focus vendors are meeting needs in family/internal medicine, but how do they perform across other specialties? And which vendors are best suited to the unique needs of smaller, independent practices and specialties? To answer these questions and help providers find the best fit for their specialty mix, KLAS interviewed over 700 healthcare professionals.

1. BROAD-FOCUS VENDORS: EPIC AND ATHENAHEALTH NARROW IN ON CUSTOMER SUCCESS

Of the vendors that scale to larger practices, Epic and athenahealth best meet the content needs of customers across a broad range of specialties. By requiring customer training and certification, Epic ensures users can tackle the extensive optimization work themselves. Alternatively, athenahealth’s faster implementations, prebuilt content, and limited customizations allow customers to attain adequate proficiency with less investment. Cerner and eClinicalWorks customers note recent improvements in content (through Playbooks and reporting, respectively) and in vendor focus, though specialty gaps still exist. Conversely, Allscripts TouchWorks, GE Healthcare, and NextGen Healthcare have historically been well positioned to develop content across many specialties but have delivered poorly, leaving customers to shoulder customization efforts alone. This has led to mixed results and increasing customer frustration. Providers report better vendor attention to Allscripts’ other platform, Professional; small to midsize practices have seen success with its new content, which adapts well to multiple specialties.

2. BEST SMALL-MARKET OPTIONS: APRIMA, CUREMD, AND ADVANCEDMD

Aprima and AdvancedMD excel in offering prebuilt content, relatively simple template modification, and good overall usability to meet the needs of a wide variety of smaller, specialty practices. CureMD customers across a number of specialties love their system’s prebuilt content, simplified workflows, and superior ease of use.

overall specialty performance vs breadth of coverage

overall specialty offerings and performance

Writer
Elizabeth Pew

Designer
Natalie Jamison

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This material is copyrighted. Any organization gaining unauthorized access to this report will be liable to compensate KLAS for the full retail price. Please see the KLAS DATA USE POLICY for information regarding use of this report. © 2024 KLAS Research, LLC. All Rights Reserved. NOTE: Performance scores may change significantly when including newly interviewed provider organizations, especially when added to a smaller sample size like in emerging markets with a small number of live clients. The findings presented are not meant to be conclusive data for an entire client base.