KLAS: Small Hospital EHR Implementations Propel 2022 Market Growth

Oracle Health (Cerner)

Oracle Health had its first double-digit net gain in hospitals since 2018. Compared to previous years, where large clients drove Oracle Health’s growth, small hospital implementations of the CommunityWorks platform primarily drove 2022 gains.

However, revenue cycle challenges are larger Oracle Health customers are leaving the vendor. Smaller hospitals continue to use the platform, though some reported concerns about their experience with Cerner Patient Accounting/CommunityWorks Financials.

The gap in size between the small hospitals that Oracle Health gained and the larger hospitals they lost, the vendor saw the largest overall decline in beds of any firm included in the report.

MEDITECH

MEDITECH saw the most wins of all EHR vendors, with 120 hospital gains, including 102 migration purchases. A large majority of migrations were part of one organization’s decision to move to Expanse after a multi-year evaluation. This contract led to the most hospital migrations the EHR vendor has seen in a year.

MEDITECH also saw its highest retention rate in a single year, underscoring the confidence legacy clients have in Expanse. Still, the vendor’s market share saw a net decrease in beds and total hospitals.

M&A and standardization activity by larger healthcare organizations comprised 13 of the firm’s 24 hospital losses. Of the other 11 losses, nine were legacy customers who moved to other vendor platforms, mostly Epic’s Community Connect model.

Epic

EHR vendor Epic maintained its spot as the top choice for large organizations. They continue to gain customers from all EHR vendors, including those not highlighted in the report.

Epic’s footprint is the largest nationwide, covering almost half of all acute care beds. The KLAS report noted that Epic customers include most of the largest, well-resourced academic medical centers.

Epic had one loss in 2022 from a Community Connect customer that moved to CPSI. The decision was not the result of M&A or standardization activity.

Altera Digital Health (Allscripts)

Since the acquisition by Harris, Altera Digital Health has worked to rebrand its health IT products. Paragon is now a go-forward platform alongside Sunrise. In 2022, Altera Digital Health gained one new Sunrise contract, and two hospitals migrated from Paragon to Sunrise.

Most of the company’s 22 losses went to Epic, with the remainder divided between MEDITECH and Oracle Health. The report noted that M&A or standardization caused two of the losses.

Azalea Health

The EHR vendor’s base is primarily ambulatory EMR customers. In 2022, the company saw a decrease in small acute care clients. Azalea Health saw five losses from standalone hospitals—four went to Oracle Health CommunityWorks, and one went to CPSI. Wins were against CPSI and MEDITECH.

CPSI

About half of legacy Healthland Centriq and Classic customers who made an EHR purchase decision migrated to Evident; these customers anticipate the newer physician UI. The other half left CPSI and switched to Epic, MEDITECH, or Oracle Health.

MEDHOST

The EHR vendor’s small customer base had no net-new contracts in 2022. Of the eight hospitals that left MEDHOST in 2022, half selected an Epic EHR, and the other four selected Oracle Health. M&A activity caused half of the losses.