EHR Sector Poised to Consolidate

Meaningful use commands for electronic health records under the HITECH Act to have been met to a great extent, or if nothing else started, by most payers and providers, which implies that software vendors will have a smaller customer base, and less space to develop.

The far reaching appropriation of electronic health records by payers and providers lately implies less customers for EHRvendors, and that could prompt noteworthy combination inside the EHR area, as indicated by a report released by the "Standard and Poor's" Global Ratings.

"The high level of entrance, and the resultant decrease in the new customer base, has prodded industry combination as driving members look for new roads for revenue development, including upgraded highlights and abilities to existing products," S&P expert Sarah Kahn said.

Kahn referred to an administration report which demonstrated that in 2015, 96% of hospitals (up from 72% in 2011) and 78% of physician workplaces (up from 34% in 2011) used certified EHRs, and that 82% of non-federal acute-care hospitals traded laboratory reports, radiology reports, clinical rundowns, or medication records electronically.

With new customers hard to find, Kahn said she anticipates that EHR vendors will "begin feeling the weight from more constrained revenue openings and more prominent rivalry in the U.S. markets."

The report likewise predicts that:

•             Growth rates among the biggest EHR providers, (for example, Epic Software Corp. and Cerner Corp.) will outpace industry development rates, as healthcare providers keep on favouring huge EHR providers that can offer an expansive scope of administrations.

•             Consolidation in the healthcare IT industry will encourage economies of scale and widen abilities, however that credit ratings will stay obliged by the specialty of the business and additionally by low boundaries to section and high discontinuity.

•             Aggregation of information inside a digital healthcare framework will enable industry payers to analyze results of providers, products, and procedures, encouraging better focus on value and total cost.

•             With healthcare IT spending inclining upward abroad, as nations with open installment systems concentrate on giving a base level of care and dealing with a developing populace, some U.S. vendors will look abroad to grow their operations.