Healthcare Insights

EHR installation rates in children’s hospitals

Children’s hospitals are a crucial component of the healthcare industry, as they provide diagnosis, research, treatment and care specifically for children. Children’s services must factor in children’s unique physical and psychological differences. EHR systems, including clinical technologies, can help healthcare providers deliver quality care to children. 

What are clinical technologies? 

Clinical technologies are a type of electronic health record (EHR) system that records, stores and presents patient information to improve patient care. Clinical technologies often specialize in an area of medicine, such as anesthesia, cardiology or oncology.  

Definitive Healthcare tracks 276 active children’s hospitals across the U.S. We put together a list of the top three inpatient EHR vendors being used in children’s hospitals.  

Top 3 inpatient EHR vendors in children’s hospitals

Rank Vendor # of children's hospitals using vendor Explore dataset
Epic Systems Corporation 142 Explore
Cerner Corporation 74 Explore
MEDITECH 20 Explore

Fig. 1 Data from Definitive Healthcare's Hospital database. Data accessed February 2022.  

Technology opportunities among children's hospitals  

Interestingly, 142 children’s hospitals named Epic as their inpatient EHR software. Cerner comes in second with 74 children's hospitals, and MEDITECH comes in third with 20 children’s hospitals.   

According to our technology vendor data, Epic holds just over 34% of the EHR market share across all U.S. hospitals. Cerner holds nearly 24% of the EHR market share across all U.S. hospitals, and MEDITECH holds nearly 15% of the EHR market share across all U.S. hospitals. 

We also wanted to look at installation rates of some specific clinical technologies at children’s hospitals compared to all U.S. hospitals. 

Installation rates of clinical technologies at children's hospitals vs. all U.S. hospitals

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Fig. 2 Data from Definitive Healthcare's Hospital database. Data accessed February 2022.  

Which hospital group had the highest clinical technology installation rates? 

Children's hospitals had a higher installation rate for all three systems: anesthesia information management system, cardiology information system and oncology information system.   

71% of children’s hospitals had an anesthesia information management system, compared to 36% of all hospitals. 67% of children’s hospitals had a cardiology information system, compared to 42% of all hospitals. 62% of children’s hospitals had an oncology information system, compared to 35% of all hospitals. 

Why might children’s hospitals have higher clinical technology installation rates? 

Definitive Healthcare’s hospital data indicates that children's hospitals have higher installations for specialty clinical applications compared to all U.S. hospitals. These differences may be due to the individual hospital's solutions reporting. There are also pediatric subspecialties within a children's hospital, which could lead to an increased need for more specific software.   

Children’s hospitals more widely use technologies in specialized areas like anesthesia, cardiology and oncology. In each of these applications, the percentage of specialty technology installations at children's hospitals fell between 62% and 71%. In contrast, technology installations for these specialty applications were approximately 38% among all U.S. hospitals.  

The market for oncology information systems is likely to grow over the next several years. Various cancer therapies—including chemo and radiation therapies—are becoming increasingly available to pediatric oncology patients. This, and an increase in initiatives related to the modernization of healthcare infrastructure, point to more expansion in cancer-specific clinical applications at children's hospitals.  

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Healthcare Insights are developed with healthcare commercial intelligence from the Definitive Healthcare platform. Want even more insights? Start a free trial now and get access to the latest healthcare commercial intelligence on hospitals, physicians and other healthcare providers. 

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