According to a new report from KLAS Epic and Cerner each held about one-quarter of the acute care hospital EHR market share in 2016. The officials of Cerner Corporation reported that both Epic and Cerner hold around 24 percent of the market. Followed by Meditech, McKesson and athenahealth with 16.6 percent, 4.6 percent and 1.6 percent market share respectively.
Cerner Strategy To Look Downmarket For Potential Expansion Opportunities Works
Several EHR companies have been looking downmarket for possible expansion opportunities. Cerner seem to have continued to follow it religiously and became successful in grabbing the largest percentage of the market. This was primarily due to its wins in the small hospital space. KLAS report said,
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“Small hospitals moved to Cerner more than any other vendor in 2016,”
Small hospitals seem to like Cerner CommunityWorks due to its broad scope of functionality and integration. The KLAS report found that Cerner had about a quarter of EHR purchases last year among hospitals with 200 or fewer beds.
Cerner Corporation Says, It Is A Market Leader
- According to Cerner, they won contract decisions involving 109 acute care hospitals in the year 2016, whereas Epic picked up 91 hospital contracts. Not including existing customer add-ons, the gap contracted to 69-66.
- During a meeting, Cerner said that they picked up more than double the number of contracts of popular vendors other than Epic, athenahealth and MEDITECH Web.
Faith Community Hospital Relies On Cloud-Based System
Nevertheless, some small and rural hospitals are doubtful that that companies like Epic and Cerner can truly house their needs. Recently, Frank Beaman, CEO of Faith Community Hospital in Jacksboro, TX told Healthcare Dive that his hospital chooses a cloud-based system from athenahealth because of bad experience with other models.
Frank Beaman said,
“All of the issues we ever had with either not having access or having any kind of security concern took place with [legacy model] systems in our building.”
Cerner Corporation BOD Approves Stock Repurchase Program
The company announced in Cerner news that its board of directors have approved a stock repurchase program which authorizes the purchase of up to $500 million of its common stock. According to the company the purchases would be made using working capital.
Marc Naughton, executive vice president and CFO of Cerner, said,
The company is “well positioned for long-term growth,” and added that the stock repurchase “reflects our confidence in delivering this growth.”
Naughton marked the company’s strong balance sheet and expected strong cash flow as the reasons for its confidence.
Date: June 6, 2017