The following are some of the vendors often under consideration:
- Allscripts: The Eclipsys Sunrise platform has proven clinical functionality. Strong outpatient strategy via Allscripts.
- Cerner: Has been among the most aggressive in adapting a large hospital solution for the community space. A proven clinical platform which is made more consumable by the introduction of the remote-hosted version.
- Epic: Has dominated the large hospital market. Not accustomed to selling to hospitals with less than 300 beds (unless it is a children’s hospital). Some community hospitals are piggybacking on a larger organization’s investment in Epic, making these larger hospitals act as solutions providers to other hospitals – i.e. acting as vendors.
- McKesson: Paragon has a lot of momentum in the community and mid-size hospital space. They are rolling out CPOE functionality.
- Meditech: The most successful (and affordable) integrated platform in the community hospital market. Huge number of legacy installs. The go-forward is Version 6.
- QuadraMed: Has a sizable client base in the middle of the market. Proven clinical adoption. Clients wonder where the core clinical product is going in terms of development.
- Siemens: Soarian has several installs in community and mid-size hospitals. Has gained CPOE adoption. Little clinical enhancement with MedSeries4 and still working out which is the preferred solution for this market – Soarian or MS4.
CPSI, Healthland, HMS, and NextGen are pushing up into the small end.
What is on the horizon?
Large hospital vendors are redoubling their efforts to win business in the community hospital space, which, in turn, causes vendors with small hospital solutions to reinvest in their products in order to prove clinical functionality and adoption. These two groups of vendors are coming at the market from different places, but providers benefit all the same.
Guest Post: Jeremy Bikman is Chairman at KATALUS Advisors, a strategic consulting firm focused on the healthcare vertical. We help vendors grow, guide hospitals into the future, and advise private equity groups on their investments. Our clients are found in North America, Europe, and Asia. www.KATALUSadvisors.com
The principals of KATALUS Advisors have worked with hundreds of healthcare organizations, vendors, and other consulting firms across the globe. The opinions expressed here are our own and are not intended to promote any specific vendor and do not reflect those of any other organization or individual.
