A new report from KLAS rating EHRs vendors from across the entire continuum of care is shining a light on some of the niche vendors catering to the ambulatory care, acute care, home care, long-term care, behavioral health and urgent care markets.

The report, “Continuum of Care: A Comprehensive Look at EMRs in a Connected Continuum,” looked at both enterprise and single-setting EHR vendors to determine which platforms best positioned to help customers successfully adapt in each care setting.

In the home care arena, KLAS points to Thornberry and Homecare Homebase as leaders.

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“An aging population is putting pressure on home care agencies to grow and prove they are a good fit for narrow networks,” the report said. “Today, most agencies make standalone HIT decisions, and single-setting solutions Thornberry and Homecare Homebase stand out for meeting customers’ needs.”

Thornberry’s customers are smaller and rave to KLAS about Thornberry’s high-touch relationships and go-forward vision. Homecare Homebase offers a robust solution, KLAS said, that can scale to the largest of agencies.

Long-term care also is increasing in importance as health systems focus on reducing readmissions and more quickly discharging patients to less costly settings. Here, KLAS points to MatrixCare as the clear leader in a crowded field.

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“Most long-term care providers are not part of a health system and generally opt for non-enterprise solutions,” the report said. “MatrixCare’s acquisition of AOD has generated customer optimism around the future roadmap thanks to strong executive leadership (on top of steady support). These changes have positioned MatrixCare as the top-performing vendor, outpacing PointClickCare and CPSI (American HealthTech).”

In the smaller urgent care field, KLAS said that Practice Velocity comes out on top.

“Urgent care is the setting least impacted by the evolution toward the continuum, with revenue driven more by convenience than value-based care contracts,” the report explained. “Health systems most often leverage their enterprise ambulatory care or emergency department solution for urgent care. Among urgent care-specific solutions, Practice Velocity outperforms DocuTap thanks to strong relationships and development.”

On the behavioral health front, KLAS said that it will begin digging in deeper in 2018 because many providers feel behavioral health is a key for providing better care and controlling costs since behavioral health issues present as comorbidities with a number of chronic diseases.

“Netsmart has the largest market share, with solutions for private practice and psychiatric hospitals,” the report said. “Other key vendors with mindshare include Cerner, Core Solutions, Credible and Qualifacts. Meditech, like Cerner, has released an integrated offering; Epic’s is slated for 2018.”

The acute and ambulatory care settings continue to be the hub for health system EHR decisions, the results of which will impact decisions in other care settings. Here KLAS said Epic and Cerner are the leaders.

“Large health systems evaluating acute and ambulatory care platforms continue to most frequently select Epic for the physician usability and strong departmental functionality,” the report said. “Cerner is also widely considered for the comprehensive functionality. Health systems frequently weigh the revenue cycle as part of this decision, often tipping things strongly in Epic’s favor.”

Large health systems infrequently select Allscripts and Meditech today – Allscripts’ smaller breadth of functionality and Meditech’s previous lack of an integrated ambulatory platform have often been deal breakers, KLAS added.

Ultimately, the report concluded that healthcare data needs to move from disconnected silos to a smooth, connected ecosystem if the industry expects to successfully shift to value-based care.

Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT
Email the writer: bill.siwicki@himssmedia.com