One of the most popular questions I get asked (although far behind the Which EMR is Best? question) is what’s the EMR market share look like. The problem is that there really isn’t any great data out there for EMR market share. Plus, the numbers that EMR vendors give out just clouds up the conversation completely.

Here’s an example from an article about Allscripts completed merger with Eclipsys:

“What this merger heralds is the coming together of the health care system,” says Tullman. In other words, Allscripts now provides service to about 180,000 physicians (roughly 30% of all U.S. physicians), more than 1500 American hospitals (about 50% of U.S. hospitals with 200 beds or more) and over 10,000 post acute care facilities (more than 75% of U.S. facilities).

These numbers just make me laugh. The wrong assumption that people make is that when they say they provide services to 180,000 physicians that they mean their providing EMR services. After all, Allscripts has something like 7 different EMR software products, right? Too bad that assumption would be way off base.

I think it’s pretty clear that the Allscripts product that’s most widely used is SureScripts (ePrescribing). Take out the SureScripts users and I wonder how many physicians really use Allscripts products. The number would be DRAMATICALLY lower.

Of course, we could have easily known this if we just looked at the “30% of all U.S. physicians” quote. There aren’t even that many physicians using an EMR (let alone an Allscripts EMR). I’m sure similar things could be said about the hospital numbers listed above.

Yes, these numbers are just the “spin” that is so prevalent in marketing and PR. That is their job after all. Hard to complain too much about them doing their job.

One thing is certain. Trying to figure out EMR market share is pretty much impossible. Plus, the ones that are the loudest aren’t always the ones with the most market share. Remember that.

Many people that read this blog have never heard of Medical Informatics Engineering (MIE) until they saw this blog post. Honestly, before HIMSS this year I hadn’t really ever heard of them either. However, at HIMSS I was introduced to their story and was really intrigued. Yesterday they announced a new CEO, Bruce Lisanti to lead the company. Here’s a section of the press release:

“With the pending changes in the US healthcare system and with meaningful use criteria now finalized under the HITECH Act’s electronic health records (EHR) incentive program, there is an unprecedented opportunity for growth and expansion in the healthcare IT industry,” said Mr. Lisanti. “Electronic health records can enable physicians, hospitals, labs and patients to work together more easily. When combined with fully functional personal health records (PHR), electronic communication and access to information can substantially reduce the overall costs of the healthcare system. As one of the only fully integrated, web-based EHR systems available today, MIE has an enormous opportunity to become a leader in this space.”

“MIE has already demonstrated an impressive ability to promote the broad adoption of this technology on a regional scale,” Lisanti continued. “The MIE Health Information Exchange is currently utilized by over 90 percent of the physicians in Northeast Indiana with 55 percent of these doctors using the WebChart EHR system from MIE. Our goal is to take this model nationally, positioning MIE as a leader in healthcare IT.”

What I find most interesting about stories like this is that they’re happening every single day. With over 300 EMR vendors out there, there are hundreds of MIE like EMR vendors that don’t see all the headlines, they don’t have big fancy conferences, but they’re just grabbing their portion of the EMR market.

I guess that’s why I mostly just laugh when I see someone try to calculate the EMR vendor market share. The company with the largest EMR market share is called “Other” and includes the 100′s of EMR vendors that most people don’t know about.