Almost 50 percent of hospitals with 200 or more beds will purchase a new electronic medical record system by 2016, according to a KLAS report.
Several factors are driving these hospitals' decisions to invest a significant amount of capital into a new EMR system, including the following.
1. Many organizations' first EMR system was bought quickly under meaningful use deadlines and no longer meets their needs. When the meaningful use program began in 2011, many hospitals rushed out to purchase an EMR system that would fulfill stage 1 requirements. However, many of these systems have proved to not have necessary functionality either for stage 2 or hospitals' day-to-day workflows, or have been acquired or gone out of business, according to an article in InformationWeek.
"What I'm hearing... is hospitals are recognizing there are limitations to their current system," Lorren Pettit, vice president for market research at HIMSS Analytics, told InformationWeek. "They went out and bought a system under the promise it can hold up the moon and they are realizing it's not…We've had the central government come in, under meaningful use, and put incentives out there. The provider market, the hospitals, are then scurrying around putting systems in place in order to meet these incentives."
2. Merger and acquisition activity often requires a new EMR. Consolidation within the healthcare industry increased in 2013, driven mostly by healthcare reform and other industry changes. Combining two healthcare organizations is very difficult if the organizations have different EMR systems.
"Where the last round of EMR purchases was fueled by meaningful use requirements and enticing reimbursements, this next round is being fueled by concerns about outdated technology and health system consolidation," said Colin Buckley, the author of the KLAS report, in a news release. "This shift in focus will play a major factor in which EMRs are being considered."
3. Population health management is easier if all providers in a community use the same EMR. Population health management is an increasing necessity for hospitals and health systems, and the concept relies heavily on the ability to exchange patient information with unaffiliated but nearby providers. This has led many hospitals and health systems to realize information exchange becomes much simpler if they have the same EMR system as other providers in their community.
"We see organizations that have had looser affiliations or were not affiliated, [and] as they move to population health they need to have the same systems in place" as others in their area, Bill Fera, principal at EY, told InformationWeek.
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