Single-Vendor Electronic Health Record Use Is Associated With Greater Opportunities for Organizational and Clinical Care Improvements.

Objective: To compare how hospitals that use single-vendor vs best-of-breed electronic health record (EHR) vendors utilize clinical and organizational evaluation capabilities.

Methods: Data from the 2018 (June 1, 2016, to December 31, 2017) American Hospital Association Information Technology Supplement Survey and Medicare Final Rule Standardizing File were used. Multinomial logistic regression analysis of hospitals (n=1902) was conducted to identify hospital characteristics associated with the use of EHRs for (1) clinical care evaluation capabilities and (2) organizational evaluation capabilities.

Results: Single-vendor EHR hospitals were more likely (relative risk ratio, 3.37; 95% confidence interval, 1.97-5.76) to use EHRs for clinical care and organizational evaluation capabilities. Not-for-profit hospitals were more likely to use EHRs for all organizational evaluation capabilities than government nonfederal hospitals. For-profit hospitals were less likely to use EHRs for organizational or clinical evaluation capabilities than government nonfederal hospitals.

Conclusion: Hospitals using the single-vendor EHR system were more likely to engage in clinical care and organizational evaluation than hospitals using best-of-breed EHR systems.