Getting One’s Head Around the Physician EHR Marketplace

by Clive Riddle, May 21, 2010

In the midst of health reform and stimulus initiatives to drive EHR adoption, I’ve been trying to get my head around the physician Electronic Health Record marketplace. What is the total size, what is the current level of adoption, who are the major vendors, and what is their market share?

So then Chris Thorman of SoftwareAdvise.com surfaces, with his own blog post, EHR Software Market Share Analysis, that takes a pretty good stab at these questions. Here’s  what Chris and Medical Software Advise team determined:

• 65% of all 788,000 U.S. physicians, or 512,000 are outpatient/private practice based and thus in the potential EHR market (U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics)

• 44% of these 512,000 physicians, or 225,000 doctors, have adopted either a partial, basic, or fully functional EHR system (CDC)

• The top vendors in this marketplace are:
  • Epic (45,000 ohysicians/ 17% marketshare)
  • Allscripts (40,000 physicians / 15% marketshare)
  • eClinicalWorks (40,000 physicians / 15% amarketshare) 
  • GE Centricity (35,000 physicians / 10% marketshare)
  • NextGen (35,000 / 13% marketshare) 
  • SOAPWare (30,000 physicians / 12% marketshare) 
  • Practice Fusion (18,500 physicians 7% marketshare 
  • Other Vendors (10% marketshare)

There are of course a number of nuances and issues that would benefit from further clarification in their analysis, which Chris details in his post. Chris is also seeking feedback from those with direct knowledge in this area.