Specialty-Driven EHRs Earn Top 2021 Physician Satisfaction Ratings, 11th Annual Black Book Ambulatory Practice Surveys

TAMPA, Fla., March 3, 2021 (Newswire.com) - Fifty-four percent of the 19,950 specialist practices surveyed by Black Book™ in 2021, revealed the biggest trend in physician technology replacements has swung back to medical and surgical specialty-driven EHRs with integrated RCM, interoperability, and analytics.

Practices that see a high volume of finite diagnoses have significantly benefited from the templates offered to support a more disparate cross-section of patients who require more individualized documentation according to 88% of all specialists surveyed.

Even after the major wave of practice EHR replacements five years ago, 78% of specialists confessed to having regrets for their scurry to implement and install their second or third EHR system to vendor systems that lack connectivity with other providers.

Recent EHR replacement changes have been fueled by specialist workflow and productivity complications that left no time for physicians to customize their generic, multi-use EHR according to 92% of surveyed respondents, while 37% of specialists still complain over the lack of interoperability with many major medical centers and health systems where they refer patients but do not have admitting privileges.

 "Purchasing a specialty-driven system, whether engineered only for a single specialty or by a major EHR/HIT vendor, was the most effectual path to resolve ultra-specific functions, quality reporting needs, and produce reimbursement support," said Doug Brown, Managing Partner of Black Book

Twenty-two percent of independent specialists switched EHRs from their original and/or subsequent system implementations in favor of a comprehensive multi-use EHR because they perceived limited market-sized (specialist-specific) EHRs may lead to compromised growth and stability in their practices and position them best for value-based reimbursement.

Improvements in web-based EHRs including implementations, updates, usability, connectivity and customization have reversed overall EHR satisfaction of physicians from barely 13% meeting or exceed expectations in 2012, to 91% overall contented specialty-driven EHR users in Q1 2021.

Lack of interoperability with other providers, particularly inpatient facilities, continues to be an apprehension for nine in 10 out-of-network specialist physicians that are not part of an integrated delivery network. "As many specialty-specific EHRs have not fit well within garden-walled, hospital-networked, payer and public health information exchanges, they have been rendered unable to compete with the large multi-specialty EHRs", said Brown.

"The global finding is that specialty-driven, not necessary specialty-specific EHRs are on the fast track for the third and fourth wave of specialist system replacements," said Brown. "Notably, well-constructed, multi-specialty EHRs with strong market presence have accommodated dozens of specialties through flexible functioning and incorporated plugins."

Eighty percent of all specialty practices that switched EHRs between January 2015 and December 2017 report the financial burden of changing EHRs had put the practice in an unstable financial position. Ninety-two percent of specialists anticipating the change of systems in 2021-2022 report only reviewing cloud-based EHRs for the cost factors.

The highest-ranked vendors in 47 medical and surgical specialties ranked on 18 eighteen key performance indicators detailed to private physician practices in the 2021 Black Book Ambulatory EHR user survey for customer satisfaction and loyalty are:

Allergy & Immunology: Allergy EHR

Ambulatory Surgery Centers: SIS Amkai

Anesthesia: Medaxion Pulse

Behavioral Health: Netsmart

Cardiology: Endovault Cardiology

Chiropractic: ChiroCloud

Correctional Facilities: CorrecTek

Colon & Rectal Surgery: Cerner

Dermatology: Modernizing Medicine

Diagnostic Imaging/Radiology: IBM Merge

Emergency Medicine: T System EV

Endocrinology: Practice Fusion

Family Practice: DrChrono

Gastroenterology: Modernizing Medicine

General Surgery: GE Healthcare

Geriatrics: Cerner Powerchart

Home Health Small Agency: MatrixCare Brightree

Home Health Large Agency & Hospice: Netsmart

Infectious Disease: Allscripts

Internal Medicine: Allscripts

Mobile EHR: DrChrono

Multispecialty Clinics: Allscripts

Nephrology/Dialysis: Prognocis

Neurology: Epic Systems

Neurosurgery: Nexus Clinical 

Nuclear Medicine: IBM Merge

Obstetrics Gynecology & Reproductive Medicine: athenahealth

Oncology & Hematology: McKesson IKNOWMED

Ophthalmology: Modernizing Medicine

Orthopedic Surgery/Hand/Spine: Modernizing Medicine

Osteopathic Physicians: Allscripts

Otorhinolaryngology: Modernizing Medicine

Pain Management: Modernizing Medicine

Pediatric Surgery: Epic Systems

Pediatrics: NextGen Healthcare

Plastic Surgery: Modernizing Medicine

Physical Therapy & Rehab: WebPT

Plastic & Cosmetic Surgery: Modernizing Medicine

Podiatry: Kareo

Primary Care: Allscripts

Psychiatry: Therapy Notes

Pulmonary Medicine: eClinicalWorks

Rheumatology: Allscripts

Sleep Centers: NextGen Healthcare

Sports Medicine/Athletics:Presagia Sports

Substance Abuse & Addiction Medicine:Celerity

Urgent Care & Occupational Medicine: Experity

Urology: WRS

More detailed information is available at http://www.blackbookmarketresearch.com/ambulatory-alternate-site-ehr/

About Black Book™         

Black Book Market Research LLC, provides healthcare IT users, media, investors, analysts, quality-minded vendors, and prospective software system buyers, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and other interested sectors of the clinical technology industry with comprehensive comparison data of the industry's top respected and competitively performing technology vendors. The largest user opinion poll of its kind in healthcare IT, Black Book™ collects over 800,000 viewpoints on information technology and outsourced services vendor performance annually. Black Book was founded in 2003, is internationally recognized for over 15 years of customer satisfaction polling, particularly in technology, services, outsourcing and offshoring industries.

Black Book™, its founders, management and/or staff do not own or hold any financial interest in any of the vendors covered and encompassed in this survey, and Black Book reports the results of the collected satisfaction and client experience rankings in publication and to media prior to vendor notification of rating results. Follow Black Book on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/blackbookpolls

For methodology, auditing, resources, comprehensive research, and ranking data, see http://blackbookmarketresearch.com

Source: Black Book Research