Cerner offers their population health management software platform, HealtheIntent, their cloud-based data reconciliation and population stratification platform to provide a comprehensive population health management solution.
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NextGen Healthcare EHR
Score 7.9 out of 10
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NextGen® EHR solutions meet the needs of ambulatory practices of all sizes by helping users coordinate patient care, while complying with healthcare reform demands such as the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS), population health, and other value-based care requirements. NextGen® Enterprise EHR built for large practices delivers a fully integrated, scalable system that helps clients achieve interoperability, patient engagement, regulatory compliance, and value-based…
NG is like no other software I have ever used. I thought if you used one software they are all alike. Not this software, it is totally different but let me tell you very thorough and it also can track anything that anyone has done in a work day. Good auditing system.
My honest opinion is if an organization is fully running a Cerner EMR, it is almost not avoidable choice to use HealtheIntent. From performance and consistency views, it performs very well simply because HealtheIntent and Cerner EMR are from the same place. From the cost perspective, it's up to the contract. But in a general sense, it is more cost effective rather than running a separate analytics framework. If an organization is running a mix of Cerner and other clinical IT system, the answer is all but case by case.
I would recommend NextGen Healthcare EHR 9 times out of 10 for a mid-sized multi-specialty practice, internal medicine, family practice, peds, and behavioral health (for CHCs, FQHCs, and private practice), but beyond that, I don't believe that NextGen Healthcare EHR is the best solution most times. Consider having all staff at all levels read "Raving Fans" and employ the model. Do what you do well, don't do what you can't do well. You'll be far more successful.
NextGen has always stayed on top of the many changes every year and remained certified. I have seen many EHR companies go out of business or seen users have to change EHR systems in order to remain compliant for reporting.
With NextGen, I am able to make a few customizations that my providers ask for to make their documentation easier. Not all EHR's are customizable. While it is not best practice to do a lot of customizations, sometimes it is worth the extra work to keep your providers happy!
I love going to the NextGen User Group Meeting they have every year. I always learn things I didn't know and learn more about the things I do. They offer classes for everyone no matter what you do that pertains to NextGen. Even Government updates for healthcare.
Metadata management in HealtheIntent should be improved. For example, we could find similar looking data sources (for example, diagnosis tables with similar names) but it was hard to distinguish and know which one is the one in production. It was because several data stewards loaded the same table with a different purpose (with similar tables names). And HealtheIntent doesn't have a metadata "for a test" or "for development", which makes hard to manage versions of one data source.
To run a SQL in HealtheIntent, there is a time limit of only 10 minutes. Also, there is no delicate configuration of query execution. It may not need a lot of functions like Toad or SQL developer, but what HealtheIntent provides is very limited.
Similar to the one above, HealtheIntent may need better metadata management for users. It is hard to find a table that I need, even to find out the existence of the table. Basic statistics like the size of a table, # of rows may be helpful for users.
EHR and Practice Management are two completely different interfaces within the same program and are not easily navigated.
Only super users can perform all tasks, making it so all staff needs to become a super user.
Credit Card processing is difficult to set up and change-- we moved offices but need to process CC payments through our old office.
When patients prefill their registration information online, we are unable to confirm their insurance information due to small glitches with the program.
There are multiple ways to view the daily schedule, and none of them are easy to use.
The usability of the product is great. The difficulty that we have is in the background with the speed of servers or of things loading. If there are any issues with the remote server, things can really slow down drastically.
Pages load quickly and reports are uploaded quickly. It just takes far too many clicks to get anything complete in this program. If a patient wants to pay for something after we have checked them out of their appointment, or wants to make an appointment it is not efficient. In a busy practice like ours efficiency is key and we need to keep the flow going
Tier 1 support is useless. They gather details we've already provided and have no idea how to help us. Techs just call rather than scheduling an appointment which means we are in the middle of something else and our internal IT is unavailable to provide appropriate connection. Webex details aren't provided in advance of the call so it's difficult to get connected timely to have a conversation in real time during the support session. Many issues drag on for months and tickets get closed without resolution. It's a "known issue" is the most unhelpful response to a recurring problem. UGM Learning Lab is perfect because the issues based experts are there! It would be ideal to always be connected like that in real time
We have had Cerner HealtheIntent for over 10 years and it has been a strong EMR. Other EMRs have been OK. They have just done the job, but haven't lived up to their promise. When a patch is put out for Cerner HealtheIntent, it actually works without bugs. Reaching support for Cerner HealtheIntent is easier and our issues are taken care of in a timely manner.
NG is like no other software I have ever used. I thought if you used one software they are all alike. Not this software, it is totally different but let me tell you very thorough and it also can track anything that anyone has done in a work day. Good auditing system.
ROI may be depending on the contract. But even if an organization is spending the same money for either homegrown analytics or HealtheIntent, HealtheIntent provides more agility of project or cost spending. If you don't like it you can discontinue anytime.
The negative one is, HealtheIntent is a new product in Cerner and at this point, it may not be capable of everything like homegrown analytics. The question would be the future of HealtheIntent and will be able to cover what you need soon.
If an organization is pursuing a standard, generic analytics and reporting (such as the combination of Oracle and Tableau), HealtheIntent is great. If not (for example, running R and d3.js for specific cases), the cost of migration to HealtheIntent will skyrocket.
