Who are the largest EHR vendors

According to a report by market research firm Business Intelligence, the 30 billion USD global EHR market will reach over 38.3 billion USD by 2025.  By most estimates there are over 500 vendors offering some type of EHR product. Despite the sheer size and saturation of the EHR market, the lion’s share of the EHR market based on subscriber or revenue metrics is controlled by a small fraction of vendors. These large players in the EHR marketplace control large chunks of market share serving many of the various niche EHR markets.  

Who are the largest EHR vendors? To answer this question, it is important to look at the market segments that align with products aimed at servicing organizations within a specific care setting and the major players in the overall EHR market. 

Hospital EHRs

According to KLAS U.S. Hospital EMR Market Share 2019 report, Epic EHR and Cerner hold the largest share of the acute care hospital EHR market. Based on their examination of all acute care hospitals in the United States (5,400 hospitals) market share can be divided as follows: 

1. Epic: 28 %
2. Cerner: 26 %
3. Meditech: 16 %
4. CPSI: 9 %
5. Allscripts: 6 %
6. Medhost: 4 %
7. athenahealth: 2 %
8. None/other: 9 %

Ambulatory EHRs

The ambulatory market offers substantially more diversity in the number of vendors who hold a meaningful share of the ambulatory EHR market. In 2018 KPMG analyzed the most recent data on the 485,841 Eligible Provider attestations sorted by ambulatory EHR products to determine the ambulatory EHR landscape. In total, this data includes 515 EHR products for ambulatory settings. As a preliminary note KPMG indicated that 15 EHR vendors represented 73% of all EP attestations, whereas the top four vendors occupied represent more than 50% of attestations. Despite the sheer number of vendors offering products.

1. Epic Systems Corporation 28.21%
2. Allscripts 9.21%
3. eClinicalWorks, LLC 6.57%
4. athenahealth, Inc. 6.03%
5. NextGen Healthcare 5.37%
6. GE Healthcare 5.00%
7. Cerner Corporation 4.32%
8. Greenway Health, LLC 2.91%
9. eMDs 1.12%
10. Modernizing Medicine, Inc. 1.09%

The 3 biggest players in the overall EHR market 

Looking at the entire EHR market the three largest players based on revenue according to Signify Research’s “EMR-EHR in Acute and Ambulatory Applications – World – 2019” are Cerner, Epic, and Allscripts. The Big 3 EHR vendors in the next few years will further consolidate their hold over the majority of the hospital and ambulatory markets. For example, KLAS reports in 2018 Epic had the highest net market share gain as the company gained new integrated delivery network hospitals, new standalone hospitals, and customer add-ons. Further, Cerner’s deal with the Department of Veterans Affairs which includes 147 acute care and 20 specialty hospitals. In the ambulatory market, there is a more diverse field of competitors vying for market share. However, Epic and Allscripts will likely continue to maintain their spot on the top as they make more earnest efforts to cater to ambulatory practices.