What are the best and the worst EMR systems’ examples in healthcare?

Posted in Electronic Health Records

Overview: 

For frequently accessing patient information, each practice requires a searchable and digital data platform to help medical professionals make the most appropriate healthcare decisions for their patients in the shortest time possible. 

Hence, healthcare providers need a good Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system to streamline different processes of their practices or organizations. An EMR is a best and easy way to keep track of patient care; however, sometimes it can work otherwise. 

While many healthcare providers support the use of EMR systems within the healthcare industry, others are strictly against this viewpoint. The reasons are based on the different issues each one of them faces. 

Based on the reviews of those healthcare providers, learn below about some of the best and worst EMR systems.

What are the Best and Worst EMR Systems?

With the help of Healthcare web application development, medical staff can access their patients’ EMRs even from the examination room. EMRs have helped medical care providers improve their workflow and enhance patient care. To run healthcare processes smoothly, it is crucial for firms to be in abidance with regulatory compliance in healthcare.

What is regulatory compliance in healthcare?

In healthcare, regulatory compliance is adherence to regulations, laws, specifications, and guidelines relevant to each organization’s processes. If healthcare organizations violations of regulatory compliance rules, they are often subject to legal punishment.

Therefore, whatever EMR healthcare providers are using, they must be compliant with the regulatory compliance. 

CareCloud

CareCloud is a major EMR and EHR, solution provider. It manages millions of requests annually. CareCloud offers an up-to-date and straightforward interface. With relatively competitive pricing, it helps practices track patient flow. 

It helps to spot possible back-ups making your practice operations more efficient. CareCloud is web-based, so it can be used with any input device. 

Pros

• It has an updated interface to make navigation easier.
• Its patient tracking flow is robust.
• It has adapted to match ever-changing laws and regulations.

Cons

• It is probably an oversimplified system for big hospitals and other large practices to use.
• While using CareCloud, small practices must get the support from a Concierge service.
• Despite having a UserRights section, it can allow access to financial information to any user. Some clinicians complained, for instance, CareCloud gave access to finances to a user who only had access to the daily schedule for one day.
• CareCloud system may work slowly at times. For example, while patients call for appointments or refills, it can take longer to pull up their charts. 

AthenaHealth

AthenaHealth is an easy-to-manage EMR system and works in a simple way to fit the needs of different practices. It is exclusively web-based, so it works for healthcare providers using a variety of devices.

Pros

• Its scheduling features can be easily sorted and customized.
• Practices can effortlessly learn to use it.
• AthenaHealth is a web-based EMR  compatible with different kinds of devices.

Cons

• This EMR cannot work sufficiently for large practices.
• Since it is web-based, practices need strict access protection measures while using it.
• Customer support is not good enough.
• Working on A/R and billing follow-up is problematic. AthenaHealth billing often does not charge patients for their balance.
• The EMR often needs countless clicks to do something.

eClinicalWorks

eClinicalWorks has acquired a good reputation in the market since 1999. It boasts an outstanding user base of over 850,000 medical professionals. eClinicalWorks is a good EMR system with multiple ways to access many screens in the program. It gives providers ease of use. The documentation in the system can be easily adapted to the practice.

The demographic area of eClinicalWorks has a menu that includes language, ethnicity, and race options, making access easy for practitioners without additional clicks. However, this EMR system is not without drawbacks.

Pros

• It gives good access to the patient’s records in the form of files and charts.
• It allows multi-user synchronous access.
• Generates clinical notes that are organized and readable.
• Medicines and medical history are listed to the side, rather than on too many pages.
• Photos in the office can be easily transferred to the medical record.

Cons

• The billing system of eClinicalWorks can pose issues for some practices. 
• With so many screens, users have to switch constantly from one thing to another; this consumes a lot of time.
• It sometimes fails to save lab results and locks up.
• Education notes for patients are not good.

Do you know the worth of EMR software?

Why do Healthcare Providers Require EMR Software Comparison?

Whenever there is an emergency at a hospital or in the field or at a medical center, doctors and EMTs need access to their patients’ earlier surgeries, current treatments, and more. This helps them make timely and mindful decisions regarding quick patient care.

Individual clinicians, hospitals, and other healthcare providers need Electronic Medical Record (EMR) software integrated with telemedicine software to keep track of patient care and get access to all past data of their patients.

Data analytics tool in EMRs takes them to the succeeding level. This technique allows a comparative view of invariant data coming from many sources. 

By comparing algorithms to the data of EMR, healthcare providers can figure out health trends not only of individual patients but also entire populations to approach preventative medicine proactively. Here are some of the reasons why healthcare providers require EMRs.

• Healthcare professionals depend on clinical experiments to formulate and examine new drugs and treatments. In the past, it was quite a challenging job, but now EMRs have certainly alleviated some of that pressure.
• Information about a patient’s socioeconomic status is combined with data in a patient’s EMR to predict the possibility of admitting the patient to the hospital in advance.
• Data from EMRs help healthcare providers to customize treatment plans for each patient. For instance, EMRs gather information generated from wearables that track critical signs such as blood-glucose level and blood pressure to forecast what disease the patient is developing.
• Further, if any chronic disease is recognized, the data is forwarded to the relevant medical professionals. They are instantly informed to develop preventive care plans for individual patients.

What EMR Systems are used in Healthcare?

Lots of EMR systems are being used in the Healthcare industry to digitize patient health data. Not just this, but medical staffs also use EMR systems to keep track of patient care data– of past as well as the present. 

The use of EMR is quite helpful for solo practitioners who can manage their small patient base easily using an electronic medical record system. These are some of the top EMRs used by healthcare providers:

AdvancedMD

EpicCare

AthenaHealth

CareCloud

Greenway Health Intergy

Kareo

NextGen Healthcare

Sevocity

TheraNest

Practice Fusion

These EMR systems may be based on either of these types of EMR software

• Cloud-Based EMR Software
• ONC-Certified EMR Software
• Mac EMR Software
• Medical Billing Software
• Behavioral or Mental Health EMR Software

The Best and Worst Electronic Medical Records Software Companies

For decades, healthcare software development services have been working on the development of EMR systems. Their generated EMR systems are usually available with some unique and common features. Once they have generated systems, these telemedicine software companies keep updating their EMR systems to provide the best user experience to healthcare providers.

However, some of these companies have poorer customer support, which leads them to rank lower than other top EMR software companies.

Here we have a list of some companies that provide EMRs:

Kareo

Cerner

Athenahealth

eClinicalWorks

CareCloud

Practice Fusion

Allscripts

CureMD

Epic Systems

Vitera Healthcare Solutions

GE Healthcare

Meditech

Praxis EMR

Centricity

Allscripts

Some of these companies may rank lower in terms of any of their EMR function not working well. Otherwise, their offered functions are relatively the same including some of the following features:

• Extensive support system
• Training and increased efficiency of staff 
• Reduction of clinical and administrative errors
• Practice analytic services
• Automated health reminders for patients
• Patient portals
• Data security

The benefits of buying a Practice Fusion EMR are getting up-to-date technology, a free patient portal, a number of customizable templates, and constant support from the company. Allscripts also has many things to offer such as longstanding significance with ample experience, a manageable dashboard, mechanisms for boosting maternity care, and a patient engagement portal.

Like Allscripts, Centricity provides customizable templates, easy integration with third parties, enhanced efficiency, and analysis via the dashboard. 

Apart from these, the systems of other above-mentioned companies are discussed in other parts of this article.

What are the Best and Worst EMR System Examples for Hospitals?

Hospitals have lots of available options for using any of the EMRs in accordance with their requirements.  Since hospitals are big practices, they need EMRs with some robust functionalities.

TheraNest

TheraNest is a 100% web-based EMR system for hospitals to use. It can also be accessed through its mobile app; that means each individual clinician of the hospital can easily access it via his/her mobile phone. 

Getting familiar with TheraNest EMR does not take much time. Further, it offers a patient access portal that can be used through a traditional computing system or smartphones. With its patient portal, patients can schedule their own appointments. 

Virence Health Centricity

This EMR for hospitals is also well-designed to be used through mobile apps. Centricity has an easy-to-use and navigates interface. It also has multiple tracking features.

Centricity from Virence Health is an ideal option for different healthcare providers. Apart from its high pricing, sometimes, its features may not function well for larger practices. This may cause it to rank lower when it comes to the best EMRs for hospitals.

Its multiple features are good enough for small practices because they give them the ability to track data better than manual records.

WebPT

WebPT’s manageable interface can also be accessed through mobile devices. Hospitals that offer outpatient services can opt for WebPT. This web-based solution has an extremely reasonable price. 

WebPT’s interface helps spot the required information easily. It has acquired a reputation due to strong customer service which is accessible at any time. Nevertheless, some facets of the system are restrictive to the way users can enter data. It is partly not useful for inpatient types of service providers.

What are the Best EMR and Worst EMR Systems for Small Practices?

To simplify their manual processes, many small practices decide to use EMR systems. These electronic medical record systems are quite useful for them; however, practices often face some unanticipated issues while using the EMRs. 

Kareo

With more than 500 employees, Kareo is used by over 50,000 healthcare providers. Like all other EMRs for small practices, Kareo is easily manageable. Though its interface is a bit old, it still works nicely for small practices. 

Medical staff can learn the basics of this EMR quickly, allowing practices to pick up the pace and start running it in less time.

Pros

• It is an easy-to-run EMR especially made for small-scale practices.
• Being available at a reasonable price, Kareo fits the needs of average-size practices.
• This EMR system offers good support for training and implementation.

Cons

• With a little outdated interface, it is not exactly made for large and complex practices.
• Some users have complained about unexpected billings. Kareo billed them while using the demo version without their making an actual subscription.
• It has no sorting feature for scanned documents, thus lumps them together making it hard for users to find them.

Sevocity

Sevocity is one of the best EMRs for small practices spread to more than 40 states. It is easy to use Sevocity with basic customization options and great features for all mid-size practices. However, it is not capable enough to satisfy the needs of big hospitals. 

This EMR has a simple interface which makes it easy to customize up to individual needs.

Pros 

• It offers good customer service features within desirable pricing.
• It functions well for smaller practices with a few staff members.
• Its customer support team for small practices is available 24/7.
• Its services are accessible across 40 countries.

Cons 

• It lacks some training features and offers limited tools.
• It is not useful for larger practices that require a more robust system.
• Though the price is reasonable, its lacking capabilities outweigh the cost.
• It allows only one person to be on the chart at a time; this slows down the pace and reduces the workflow.
• It does not support iPad or iPhone
• Sevocity brings a mild complication in billing when treatment and various E/M occur on the same visit.

NextGen Healthcare

Being a healthcare IT integration provider, NextGen offers harmonious integration to boost interoperability abilities.

NextGen is a great system software with many customization options. It provides excellent training to the staff and helps healthcare providers deliver excellent services.

It works well for smaller practices offering them the kind of customer support they often need. Small practices may not have the tech team needed to run the practice and other services, but NextGen’s training capabilities and customer service are incredibly strong.

NextGen EMR is so customizable that practices can tailor its service to their exact requirements and specifications.

Pros

• It’s training as well as customer service is outstanding.
• It is a manageable system for practices to quickly start running.
• It has multitudes of customization options at a very low price.

Cons

• It is not a powerful tool for large practices or hospitals.
• The system contains some nuances which take a lot of time to learn.
• It has inefficient features, for instance, when a practitioner is searching for something in the history data, the system displays unrelated lists.
• It does not have any options to add more patient details.
• NextGen’s charting does not fit the needs of physicians and many turns to paper charting again.

Ranking of Best to Worst EMR Systems for Doctors

Doctors often use electronic medical record system software to organize patient history, medical data, billing systems, and prescriptions. Some EMRs are the best to use whereas others might not bring good experiences for doctors. 

EpicCare EMR

EpicCare EMR is a fast, doctor-friendly EMR software recognized as the industry-leading reliable medical record system.

In comparison to all other EMR systems, it is far ahead of its competitors. Epic establishes its interfacing methodology in adherence to HL7 compliance standards.

Its simplistic yet adaptable design and epic system integration has brought transformation by making day-to-day operations easy for both- healthcare providers and patients.

Pros 

• It has an incredibly versatile ability to furnish a lot of functions to all its users in the healthcare industry.
• Collecting medication, organization of meetings, appointment scheduling, and arrangement of history are some of those functions that work well.

Cons

• After its updates, putting up orders for patients is not easy. 
• Epic’s customer support is not very responsive to the requested user-friendly changes.
• To some users, it is complicated to work with Epic because it is time-demanding. Therefore, it may not be ideal for improving patient care.

AdvancedMD

On the second spot, AdvancedMD is a good EMR offering many customizable features that make it suitable for any size of the practice. Its interface has detailed scheduling and prescription tracking options.

AdvancedMD covers medical staff’s needs whether they require fundamental or advanced features. It is adaptable enough to match the needs of different kinds of practices. 

Its primary dashboard requires some effort to learn to use properly, but once doctors figure out how it works, they are able to perform some amazing things. This helps practices run more efficiently.

Pros

• AdvancedMD has an all-inclusive scheduling interface.
• It is a versatile EMR for different sizes of practices.
• Its prescription tracking capability is excellent.

Cons

• It takes time to learn well to use efficiently.
• It has higher prices than some other EMRs.

Greenway Health Intergy 

After Epic and AdvancedMD, Greenway Health Intergy is another flexible EMR system. Apart from offering multiple training options, it provides optimal customer service. 

It is highly customizable; which means it is ideal for large medical practices to help them handle a variety of patients and cases.

However, it may take time for doctors to learn different aspects of Greenway. 

Pros

• It is an EMR full of flexible features.
• It collects shortcuts systematically to streamline tasks of practice. 
• It offers outstanding training options as well as optimal customer service. 

Cons 

• Its interface can update, which might make it a bit more complex.
• It takes a considerable amount of time to learn the custom options well to use the system. 

FAQs

What are the best and bad free EMR systems?

Free systems offer limited functions for a limited time. Some of the best and free EMR systems are OpenEMR, One Touch EMR, FreeMed, and Hippocrate.  

Who are the top EHR vendors in the USA, UK, Australia, and Canada?

Allscripts competes well in the UK and Canada whereas AlthenaHealth, eClinicalWorks, EpicCare, and AdvancedMD have their services spread across the four countries.

Are you a therapist? We have suggestions on the top EHR for therapists.

Conclusion:

Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems are considered a life-saving resource for the healthcare industry. 

However, they are not without disadvantages. Whether it is the best EMR or the least useful EMR, each has its own pros and cons, that make it useful for specific needs. If EMRs are chosen without taking proper measures, they can give rise to unprecedented risks. 

Since the healthcare industry involves dealing with the lives of people, even tiny mismanagement can take someone’s life. Therefore, it is vital that you do a thorough analysis of each system and choose an online medical record system that fits the best before implementing it. Learn about the benefits of EMR in medical billing.