Welcome to EMR and EHR

I found this about a week ago and found it really really interesting. Here’s the numbers for the EMR behemoth Allscripts per HIT News:

The company [Allscripts] made $15.8 million in net income for the quarter, turning around a $6 million loss for the same period last year. Non-GAAP net income increased 45 percent, from $16.6 million a year ago to $24 million this year.

The sad part is that Allscripts went through a nice round of layoffs last year. I can’t find the number right now, but I remember it was pretty significant. Too bad they had to fire so many people while turning such a large profit. Seems like an opportunistic cut to me. I wonder how well Allscripts support was with all the cuts.

Another quote from the same article:

“We believe that 2010 will be the ‘Year of the EHR’ in which we expect to see significant acceleration in the adoption and utilization of healthcare information technology to improve quality and reduce cost,” said Glen Tullman, Allscripts CEO. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime market opportunity, driven by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.”

There’s no doubt that Glen Tullman is salivating over the $18 billion of EMR stimulus money that’s on the table. He probably should be since Allscripts is likely to make a killing off of the stimulus money.

I think all of this is also a very good sign for smaller EMR vendors as well. I expect a number of EMR vendors to scale to 500 or so installs and sell off for a very nice return in the next few years. I guess we’ll see if Glen’s right about this being the “Year of the EHR.”