The report, CIS Purchase Decisions: Riding the ARRA Wave, details the wins and losses of electronic health records vendors getting contracts with hospitals of at least 200 beds. Such EHR sales hit a seven-year low in 2008, but then doubled from that low point in 2009 after passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and its HITECH Act provisions to spur EHR adoption.
And Epic and Cerner were the big winners, with nearly 70 percent of new hospital purchases in 2009 being an integrated clinical suite from those companies, according to KLAS, which collected data from more than 1,600 hospitals. The hospitals outlined to KLAS three primary concerns they have with clinical systems purchases: integration, clinical adoption and reliability.
"Changes in the CIS market place as a result of ARRA seem to have blindsided some vendors and left them struggling to stay afloat in the large hospital market," says Jason Hess, report author. "In 2009, Eclipsys, GE, McKesson Horizon and QuadraMed all lost more hospitals than they gained; they are struggling to regain lost ground." In fact, McKesson sold more of its Paragon community hospital system to larger hospitals than the Horizon product, which was developed for the larger hospital market.
Meditech and Siemens both had limited growth in their currently marketed clinical solutions during 2009, according to KLAS. But Meditech users on older systems worry the technology won't support meaningful use and there isn't enough time to upgrade to Mediech C/S v.6. Siemens' market footprint is shrinking as its legacy Invision system gets replaced with other products instead of the newer Soarian system.
The report is available for purchase, with a significant discount for providers, at klasresearch.com/reports.
--Joseph Goedert
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