Survey Says Physicians Prefer 'Open' VistA Enterprise EHR over Epic Systems

Edmund Billings | HIT Consultant | November 19, 2012

2012 Medscape survey says physicians prefer VistA Enterprise EHR Over Epic Systems based on 21,000 physicians in 25 specialties evaluating enterprise EHRs

Two recent surveys clearly show that, when it comes to enterprise EHRs, physicians prefer VistA. In a 2012 survey by Medscape, 21,000 physicians in 25 specialties were asked to evaluate enterprise EHRs in hospital-based health delivery networks based on the following characteristics:

  1. Easy to learn
  2. Ease of data entry
  3. Overall ease of use
  4. Ease of EHR implementation
  5. Reliability
  6. Adequacy of vendor training program
  7. Vendor continuing customer care
  8. Interactivity with other office systems
  9. Value for the money
  10. Physician overall satisfaction
  11. Staff overall satisfaction
  12. Appearance/overall usefulness of the end product.

According to the results of the Medscape survey, the VA’s Computerized Patient Record System (VistA CPRS, the clinical application in the VistA EHR system) is the third most preferred enterprise health IT solution in American medicine, ahead of Epic (6), Cerner(11), Meditech(14) and McKesson(15)...