EHR Vendor Epic Leads 2020 Acute Care Market Share Growth
A large portion of Epic’s wins came from large healthcare organizations, most of which switched from EHR vendors Cerner, MEDITECH, or Allscripts.
EHR vendor Epic’s market share growth in 2020 significantly outpaced the competition’s, according to a KLAS market share report based on acute care EHR purchasing activity throughout 2020.
A significant portion of Epic’s 2020 wins (46 hospitals and over 15,000 beds) came from large healthcare organizations, most of which switched from Cerner, MEDITECH, or Allscripts platforms. A significant win for Epic in Q1 included 37 hospitals and just under 7,000 beds.
Over the last five years, Epic has gained 90 hospitals annually on average. KLAS officials said that the EHR system’s stability and deep integration attract large organizations, whose smaller regional partners often follow suit to support improved collaboration and care coordination. Just three hospitals left Epic in 2020, all migrating due to merger and acquisition activity.
In 2020, a 37-hospital organization moved to Epic; 31 of the hospitals had been using EHR systems from Cerner, accounting for over half of Cerner’s 2020 hospital losses.
Over the last six years, Cerner has lost seven large customers (representing over 28,000 beds), mainly due to ongoing revenue cycle functionality concerns. However, the EHR vendor has seen strong success competing for community hospitals. Cerner’s 2020 wins came mostly from smaller organizations and hospitals that implemented the system for its pricing and competitive functionality.
KLAS officials noted that organizations that switched to MEDITECH Expanse often chose the platform for its improved clinician workflows and acute care, ambulatory, and revenue cycle integration.
However, MEDITECH lost 62 percent of legacy customers that made a purchasing decision in 2020. A quarter of the legacy customers that moved to another vendor in 2020 did so as the result of merger and acquisition activity, while the remainder were competitive decisions that opted not to migrate to Expanse. Notably, almost all MEDITECH’s lost legacy customers implemented Epic.
About half of all customers that left MEDITECH were hospitals with 100 to 200 beds. Some cited price as a barrier, but more often, stakeholders passed on Expanse due to limited adoption of non-core modules, like population health management.
Expanse implementations were popular among small hospitals; new hospitals that signed with MEDITECH in 2020 are all under 100 beds, and about 75 percent have around 25 beds.
Overall, 2020 saw a rise in EHR decisions among smaller healthcare organizations.
Small hospitals chose Cerner twice as often as the next closest competitor, MEDITECH. KLAS officials said that smaller hospitals looking for broad health IT functionality and sustained development often select the Millennium platform, most frequently through Cerner’s CommunityWorks model.
Similarly, some small hospitals looking to improve collaboration with referral partners leveraged Epic’s Community Connect model.
While Allscripts had no wins among small standalone hospitals in 2020, the vendor has announced a streamlined version of the Sunrise platform intended for community hospital use.