Among enterprise users, few changes were found, with charting taking up an average 42 percent of a physician’s time in 2018, compared to 46 percent in 2015. ED patient management remained the same, with physicians capable of managing 2.2 patient visits per hour on average regardless of any scored enterprise system used.

But 55 percent of the 114 CIOs interviewed say organizations favor enterprise single source solutions for their interoperability, and twenty-two percent believe that best-of-breed solutions will likely be phased out after 2022 as part of their long-term IT infrastructure strategies.


Scoring both types on the basis of 19 factors revolving around usability and functionality, the survey found best-of-breed systems to be superior in 12 of the categories. Enterprise systems scored higher only in connecting regional IDNs and network providers on the same EHR vendor system, while both held the same levels of efficiency and usability among the other six differentiators.

T-System users rated their experiences the highest in usability among ED nurses and order entries by ED physicians. Optum PICIS, Wellsoft, Cerner, MEDITECH and Allscripts also fared well.

Despite 16 percent of hospitals being moderately to highly dissatisfied with their current enterprise EDISs, 91 percent of managers and physicians report being stuck with hospitalwide, generic EHR systems due to the risk of losing funding for 2019 EDIS replacements.

By this time, hospitals hope that either will be equipped with additional features, including coding improvements, diagnosis enhancements, physicians productivity improvements, patient satisfaction, education and engagement, interoperability and connectivity for internal and external sources, and tablets, smartphone and mobile features.

"An obvious game-changer in the EDIS replacement environment is the continued development in EDIS interoperability and mobility," said Brown.

Brown did not respond for comment.

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