Folks, with all due respect to Gartner, I hesitate to be part of the echo chamber continually magnifying its importance. But still, since I've never met anyone from the IT executive suite who doesn't care at least a little about Gartner rankings, here's some data you'll probably find interesting. According to a new report from the august enterprise IT research firm, while seven major vendors of enterprise EMR systems have progressed, only two have reached "third generation" status.
The two it ranks as third generation, which it defines as having an updated product which is out of testing and has live clients using all of the platform's advanced features, are (drumroll please) Epic Systems and Cerner Corp. Cerner and Epic got this acknowledgment in 2005. By Gartner standards, the other five firms have apparently walked in place since then. The other vendors, which it ranks in the following order based on their "ability to execute," include Meditech, Eclipsys, McKesson, GE Healthcare and Siemens.
Gartner research director Barry Hieb, M.D., told a conference audience that all of the companies listed get high marks for "vision," and that some should step up to third-gen status in as little as 12 to 18 months. In the mean time, the biggest differences between them include decision support capabilities, workflow components and the use of medical vocabulary, Dr. Hieb says.
To find out more about Gartner's take on EMR vendors:
- read this Health Data Management article
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