Ophthalmic Imaging Systems, an ophthalmic digital imaging and informatics company, recently announced that its subsidiary Abraxas Medical Solutions, Inc. was named among Black Book Rankings’ top 20 electronic medical records (EMR) software providers for 2011 in five different practice size categories.
Abraxas made the list of top 20 ambulatory EMR software vendors for single physician practices, as well as for practices with 2 to 5, 26 to 99, 100 to 249 and 250 or more physicians. Abraxas provides ophthalmic-specific EMR and practice management (PM) software and support to medical offices. The two products are designed to work as a single solution and cover such areas as patient scheduling, electronic prescriptions, and billing.
The rankings were based on a survey of 174 EMR suppliers and included feedback more than 4,500 healthcare professionals, physician practice administrators and hospital leaders in the information technology arena. Rankings were based on 18 key performance indicators, including implementation, cost, reliability, and performance. Other companies that made the lists included such names as Allscripts, McKesson, NextGen Healthcare, Greenway Medical Technologies and eClinicalWorks. Black Book Rankings is a division of the Brown-Wilson Group, a market research and public opinion company.
Adoption of EMRs is growing in the U.S., spurred by federal government mandates requiring medical practices to go digital by 2014. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act), part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), offers a total of $27 billion in incentives to healthcare providers for the adoption of EMRs and EHRs (electronic health records). A recent survey by SK&A, a healthcare market research firm, found that EMR adoption increased 3 percent between January and October 2010. The most growth has been seen among practices owned by hospitals and health systems, as well as practices that have 6 to 10 physicians.
Research firm Markets and Markets projects that the global market for healthcare information technology solutions will exceed $25 billion by 2015, largely driven by EMR growth. The research firm also forecasts that the global EMR market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 14.9 percent to $9.96 million by 2015, up from $4.36 million in 2009. A recent Wall Street Journal blog noted that private equity firms are showing interest in healthcare IT companies.