No, you’re not just imagining things. Your options for electronic health records (EHR) are shrinking.
According to standards used by the Federal Trade Commission and the US Department of Justice, the EHR space shifted from a “competitive” market in 2012 to a “highly concentrated” one by 2021. If that trendline continues, where does that leave your organization, providers and patients over the next decade?
Widespread consensus around EHR best practices and adoption of those workflows is a good thing. But robust competition is ultimately the key to innovation, better service delivery and improved outcomes.
Igniting innovation
A competitive market landscape is a powerful incentive for technological progress. When multiple EHR vendors vie for business, they are compelled to invest in research and development to create better products. This drive to gain an edge pushes the entire industry forward, leading to advancements that can significantly benefit users.
In a consolidated market, innovation for the big players becomes a line item rather than an existential imperative. A dominant vendor may be less inclined to significantly improve its offerings when it already has a secure hold on the market—especially in a market with a notoriously long sales cycle and even longer contract terms.
This can leave healthcare organizations stuck with systems that may not fully meet their needs. A competitive environment, however, fosters a diversity of solutions. This allows for the growth of niche products that may be more effective for specific segments of the market, rather than forcing a one-size-fits-all approach.
Elevating client service
Think of your last visit to a major fast-food restaurant. The franchise may claim you can have it your way, but the execution is rarely as advertised. Now compare that to the local establishment where the staff members know your name, remember your kid’s food allergy and take note of your culinary preferences. In both scenarios, what is the full value of the experience you’re getting?
With greater competition, vendors must be responsive to the needs of healthcare organizations to retain their business over time. This translates to better support, more personalization and a greater willingness to work with the customer to configure and customize their EHRs. This is essential for optimizing efficiency and ensuring that the EHR is a tool that enhances, rather than hinders, patient care.
In today’s reality, large vendors face less pressure to allow flexibility—in their solutions, services and pricing. And as individual customers lose leverage, these vendors may be more inclined to offer a standardized product that strains organizations financially and constrains users but enables their own backend cost-saving efficiencies.
Additionally, when vendors must compete, they are more likely to embrace integrations with third-party applications, giving healthcare organizations the freedom to choose the best tools for their specific needs.
Unlocking data—and your options
In the early days following the HITECH Act, when systems didn’t “talk” to each other and data was kept in a black box, working with a large vendor was a sensible decision. The hope was that if other organizations were using the same system as yours, there would be fewer roadblocks to sending and receiving data.
While we’ve yet to achieve industry-wide semantic interoperability, data-sharing has come a long way thanks to greater adoption of standards like FHIR and the establishment of Qualified Health Information Networks (QHINs) through TEFCA. And with the emergence of vendor-agnostic data platforms like CareInTelligence, it’s never been easier to integrate data from across the healthcare ecosystem to gain a unified patient view.
As data silos continue to crumble, your leaders can finally shift IT decision-making from friction minimization to strategic goal realization. Presented with this new opportunity, will your organization stick with a system because it’s what others are using? Or will you evaluate whether an alternative might better serve your organization, your providers and your patients?
With healthy competition, the choice is yours.
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