EHR News Round Up – January 2024

Publication Date: 01/02/2024

Written by

Arun Gill

Cranfield, UK, 1st February 2024, Written by Arun Gill –

Welcome to my first EHR round-up of 2024, where I discuss the latest news and developments impacting the market.

#HIMSS24 is fast approaching, and I’m delighted to be attending the conference in Orlando along with the wider Signify Research team. Please feel free to drop me a message if you’ll be attending and would like to meet in person!

Innovaccer and Wolters Kluwer Join Forces

An interesting strategic partnership was announced between Innovaccer and Wolters Kluwer last week, aimed at advancing health information exchange and value-based care.

Innovaccer has built a reputation among IDNs, ACOs, health systems, hospitals, and payers for its comprehensive population health management (PHM) suite of solutions. Innovaccer’s data platform excels at bringing together structured and unstructured data from disparate sources (e.g., inpatient and primary care EHRs, claims data, and SDoH). The new partnership, however, will enable Innovaccer to leverage Wolters Kluwer’s Health Language Platform (a FHIR Terminology Server) to more efficiently harmonise information and create a comprehensive view of patient history, status, and potential risks.

Innovaccer has enjoyed rapid commercial success in just six years, scaling to a $100M-a-year business when, with the exception of Health Catalyst and Arcadia, most specialist PHM vendors hit a $10M to $20M revenue ceiling.

Last summer, the vendor unveiled its Sara for Healthcare AI automation suite, a large language model (LLM) powering four Innovaccer products. One of those four use cases, Sara for Insights, is arguably the one that will deliver the greatest results and is the area where Innovaccer enjoys first-mover advantage.

In November, it announced a partnership with VBC-enablement service provider, CareAbout Health, to provide its data platform and analytics. A contract that represents something of a strategic departure for Innovaccer, although one that has plenty of merit, as discussed in this Digital Health SPI.

The latest tie-up with Wolters Kluwer will enable Innovaccer to build on its position of strength and further enhance its proposition for its stakeholders, including healthcare providers and life sciences companies.

QHIN and HTI-1 Announcements Signal New Era of US Healthcare Data Exchange

The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) made several announcements promoting the development of health information exchanges (HIE) in recent weeks.

It officially unveiled the first five vendors that can immediately begin exchanging data under the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA), a nationwide interoperability framework. The vendors, officially designated as the first cohort of Qualified Health Information Networks (QHINs), are:

Also announced was the final ruling of HTI-1 (Health Data, Technology, and Interoperability: Certification Program Updates, Algorithm Transparency, and Information Sharing). This includes advancements related to interoperability, transparency and greater support for access and exchange of health information.

Most recently, the non-profit Sequoia Project (selected by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) as the Recognised Coordinating Entity (RCE) to support TEFCA’s implementation) released a revamped FHIR Roadmap for TEFCA Exchange, a four-stage timeline for the gradual adoption of the FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) standard for data exchange. FHIR exchange between the QHINs is scheduled to be piloted in 2025, while QHINs will continue to support non-FHIR approaches within the QHINs’ internal networks.

CommonWell Health Alliance, Carequality and eHealth Exchange are the original national Health Information Networks (HINs) and together they have access to the records of more than 90% of the country’s population. Although there is some overlap between all three, information exchange between them is anything but smooth.

A major advantage of the new QHINs versus the HINs, however, is that a member organisation of one QHIN will automatically be plugged into all five of the newly qualified TEFCA vendors, which covers the entire care system.

CommonWell Health Alliance and Kno2, listed within the original six candidate QHINs, were notable absentees from the designated QHINs. Both contenders, however, will feel confident of receiving QHIN status in the first half of this year.

TEFCA will take time to progress, and it remains to be seen how effectively QHINs will drive HIE developments. But ultimately, these recent announcements are an important step in driving national baseline standards for clinical data sharing and improving access to health information. As more organisations come on board, TEFCA has the potential to truly mark a new era of interoperability and health data exchange. Click here to read the full insight.

Nervecentre Competing with EHR Giants

In late 2023, UK departmental best-of-breed (BoB) vendor Nervecentre Software was selected as the preferred joint EPR system supplier for two acute NHS Trusts in Derbyshire, as well as for the Northamptonshire General Hospital (NGH) NHS Trust.

For the Derbyshire deal, Nervecentre pipped six other competitive bidders to the post. Even though it only has a modest number of EPR contracts in play, these are across different ICSs, and it’s not simply mopping up contracts within a single ICS.

Accelerated convergence of EPR/EHR systems around larger tier-1 vendors (e.g. Epic, Oracle Health) serving the UK’s 42 Integrated Care Systems (ICSs), and the c. 215 trusts within them, has been changing the face of the UK’s vendor competitive landscape. These recent Nervecentre wins, however, highlight that there’s room for exceptions; it’s still possible for smaller BoB vendors to compete with larger EHR vendors at the contract award stage, as detailed in this Digital Health SPI insight.

MEDHOST Finds a Home in Harris Stable

Harris Computer‘s (Harris) empire-building continued with the announcement of two acquisitions in December/January; Medstreaming, a vascular and cardiovascular workflow reporting software suite from Fivos, and the other is inpatient hospital EHR vendor MEDHOST.

The MEDHOST acquisition reinforces Harris’ taste for well-established companies whose best days (in terms of rapid growth) are perhaps behind them, but who have the products and potential to rebound.

Perhaps the most puzzling aspect of this strategy are the portfolio overlaps that some of the companies in its stable have with each other. MEDHOST has commonalities with fellow EHR vendors Harris Healthcare and Altera Digital Health, as well as standalone clinical information systems vendors iMDsoft and Picis, also both Harris companies.

As well as offering an overarching EHR solution, MEDHOST sells modular high-acuity CIS systems to hospitals. I’ve previously written about the simmering battle between Best-of-Breed (BoB) and EHR vendors. MEDHOST is on both sides of this battle, which puts it in a unique and unusual position. Mark Lazell discusses Harris’ strategy in this Digital Health SPI.

MEDITECH’s Milestone as Cloud Subscription Model Makes its Mark in Canada

MEDITECH as a Service (MaaS) has its first customer in Canada. Its latest Canadian breakthrough – Brant Community Healthcare System, which is based in the province of Ontario – has been some time coming. MEDITECH has enjoyed success with MaaS in the US since launching there around seven years ago but has struggled to replicate this success overseas.

Landing a debut customer for MaaS in Canada is a milestone for MEDITECH in a market where it has the largest installed base of any hospital EHR vendor. More than half of all facilities in the country are estimated to be using MEDITECH’s hospital IT.

But while MEDITECH continues to strengthen its Expanse customer base in Canada (new and replacement solutions), the fact is that Epic and Oracle Health, with their far more diverse portfolios of solutions, will continue to lead the revenue race. Both continue to win large contracts across the country.

The Canadian EHR market presents upside for vendors that are able to innovate, and MEDITECH will continue to chip away at its larger rivals. We forecast that acute care EHR revenues will grow at a CAGR of 9%, to reach a value of almost $500M. This will be driven by province-wide regional implementations centred mainly around acute care/hospital IT. Read our full take in this Digital Health SPI Insight.