Black Book Rankings survey listed 2013 as the “year of the great EHR vendor switch”. To a large extent, this has proven true as its latest research finds 92% practices dissatisfied with their current EHR systems. Being clunky, difficult to use, not compliant with 2014 regulations and unable to improve practice workflows are just some of the reasons for physicians’ dissatisfaction. This is especially important since nearly 75% of US physicians are using EHR systems in their practices and require efficient means to drive their delivery of quality care.

Another important reason why physicians’ are changing their EHR systems is that their current ones are unable to meet the criteria for Meaningful Use Stage 2 and ICD-10. They only have until 2014 to comply with regulatory authorities before these two systems come into effect and physicians’ will find themselves under the stick of CMS.

Let’s try and analyze the reasons in detail why physicians’ are changing their EHR systems.

Practice incompatibility with current EHR

Many current EHR systems are not 100 percent compliant with their Practice Management systems. This usually happens when both pieces of software are provided by different vendors and the practice decides to stick to both of them in order to reduce the time required for implementation. In reality, such software from the same vendor is more likely to work seamlessly together and therefore improve a practice’s efficiency. One such example is CureMD’s “All-in-One” Cloud solution, which offers seamless EHR, Practice Management and billing solutions.

Regulatory requirements

One of the biggest reasons why physicians’ are changing their current EHR systems is that they are not able to meet ICD-10 and Meaningful Use Stage 2 requirements. ICD-10 is a completely new set of disease-classification codes which will affect practices’ workflow to a huge extent. On the other hand, the government is getting stricter every day with the requirements of Meaningful Use Stage 2 and the vendors are unable to keep up the pace with them. Therefore, the physicians are replacing their current systems in order to be more compliant with the regulatory authorities.

( One such system is provided by CureMD)

Lack of specialty features

The old phenomenon of “one size fits all” is no longer in effect. Practices are increasingly looking for EHR systems that suit their unique workflow and specialty requirements. Generic or base EHR systems are difficult to use and master. They generate a huge amount of data which is sometimes not needed by the practice but they still have to be content with it. Therefore, specialists are now in the market to look for systems which match their requirements and generate exactly the type of data which they need.

Practice inefficiency

If practices are spending more time in front of the computers rather than focusing on the patients, there is something wrong. An efficient EHR system is able to speed up practice workflows, reduce redundant tasks, generate custom templates and reports, save time and increase revenues. Most of the physicians complain that they find themselves spending too much time with their current EHRs and are therefore looking to make a switch.

Lack of vendor support

Another important reason why practices are unable to bear their current EHR systems is that their vendors are unable to keep up the pace with the ever-changing requirements of the healthcare industry. They may be phasing out support, shutting their operations down or might not be able to attest to the new requirements.

The EHR software market is highly saturated at the moment and only those vendors will be able to survive who can drive results for physicians through continuous innovation and improvements. These are the ones who the physicians will be relying on for years to come.