eClinicalWorks headquartered in Westborough offers their EHR / EMR solution, which can be upgraded to a full practice management solution at higher pricing tiers.
$449
per month per provider
Epic
Score 8.5 out of 10
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Epic offers a suite of medical practice management and EHR software.
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NextGen Healthcare EHR
Score 7.4 out of 10
N/A
NextGen Healthcare provides ambulatory practices of all size solutions along with dedicated support and professional services. NextGen® Enterprise EHR offers practices configurable clinical content, workflows, and an integrated patient experience platform that incorporates telehealth. With NextGen® Mobile, providers’ smartphones become an extension of the EHR, saving time. NextGen has its own fully integrated solutions that provide dictation, speech-to-text, direct to desktop and Ambient…
Lowest cost of entry compared to other EMRs we had experience in implementing. Our customers were not ready to spend seven figures on large EMR systems they will be locked in for eight to ten years down the road. They also did not want to store a lot of local data on expensive …
Epic gives extensive customization options in terms of utility and view. I have found this to be highly useful and efficient EHR as compared to other EHRs we use in our organization.
Epic has extensive features, options, customization and is truly a robust EMR software. As a user I can tell there has been much thought and effort into creating this software and they are constantly updating the technology to keep it user friendly. Epic can do more than any …
All of the EHR's I have worked with are strong in their own right, however, Epic really shines in an Enterprise level situation. Most EHR's are specific to one context, like hospital, lab, or clinic. Epic has a great deal of strength in unifying all of these different contexts …
MediTouch EHR had a better back-end support thank eClinicalWorks (eCW) when we asked for high availability of the application to both vendors. MediTouch EHR was able to provided their downtime statistics of the last three years along with where their current host facilities are …
NextGen is ok. It is not, nor will it ever be, Epic. I have seen strides from Cerner since the Oracle acquisition, which will certainly give Nextgen a run for its status quo attitude. ECW is still very popular in the FQHC world. I have worked with NextGen software for many …
I didn’t select it. The company was already using NextGen Healthcare EHR when I was hired. NextGen Healthcare EHR is competitive and easier to use than Cerner.
The Meditech solution I used was a green screen product, so NextGen is a vast improvement over that (Meditech may have improved by now). The Horizon and McKesson EMRs that I used may not be correctly identified above, but my experience is that all EMRs provide the same basic …
eClinicalWorks should be used in most medical situations. The program generally speaking works the way it should keeping track of patient records and the like. They have recently added an inpatient module for ASCs. Seems to work pretty well for smaller practices that don't require a lot of additional features or integrations.
Epic is very good on the medical side and continues improving mental health and dental care. Having integrated telehealth via Zoom was a game-changer. During COVID, it was vital to have telehealth options and to ensure it was completely HIPAA Compliant and easy to document inside their health record.
NextGen is very easy to navigate and simple to learn. The patient scheduling and calendars are very clear and the flexibility to customize the calendars is very helpful. When we are making patient appointments it is clear what times are available for each doctor and office which helps avoid mistakes since we have multiple doctors and offices.
One of the strengths of ECW can also be a weakness depending on the user's perception. ECW has a lot of redundancies. There are multiple pathways to perform a task. It can be appealing to advanced computer users because of the versatility. I have found that it tends to confuse lesser experienced computer users.
The creation of templates is very easy and any provider in our system can create one. It definitely makes documentation more efficient. By creating a set of templates for the clinic, we are able to standardize the orders/procedures along established guidelines.
We have converted our scheduling to open access. ECW allows us to set the follow up time and the end of the visit and then an alert is created. Front office staff can run the report and schedule patients closer to the actual time. It has improved our no show/cancellation rates.
There are doctors' notes templates with prepopulated fields in them. This saves a lot of time.
Epic sends medication orders to pharmacies electronically so that we do not have to call. This saves a lot of time.
Epic has a Secure Chat feature via which we can send HIPAA protected messages to any employee with the patient's name and record attached.
It has a PDMP link. We can look up what controlled medications such as opiates patients have been prescribed and by whom.
It links to MyChart, which is a platform via which patients can look up their own information without them having to call the doctors. This saves a lot of time.
it is easy to create an appointment for a patient. The system is easy to use. It can easily show you when the next appoint is and also has pop up system alerts that the staff can view as to any special things that may need to be done before that appointment is created
Adding charges from an encounter is effortless, creates the claim and is sent to the clearing house and onto the payer. This process is all documented
one of the best features I like is that in the background is that NextGen documents every user's actions as to what is being done to the patient's chart. As a manager I can view what has happen over time with the patient's chart and easily repair what's needed
Meaningful Use Reports should be capturing data in real time and generated fairly quickly instead of the MAQ dashboard extraction process.
Their support teams are not very helpful at certain topics such as the definition/logic of Meaningful Use calculations. These are generally difficult to determine but several cases in regards to Meaningful Use take several days before it gets addressed.
Training videos would be helpful on their support website.
Visual Updates: While Epic is constantly improving the user experience, there are a few features that still need a design refresh. While this does not effect functionality, it does have an impact on user perception.
Ordering: While placing an order for a physician is very easy, a few changes to the workflow could improve the experience for physicians.
If we had an option to easily switch to another EMR product we would. However, an EMR keeps you invested solidly in it - once you've started you're then going to be stuck with it. The investment into the data in the system are such that you have no real option to back out of what you are in and move into something else. Again, if we could, we would immediately move to another EMR. The ability to use it and be supported by the vendor has decreased nearly to the point of inability to use.
[In my opinion] the features allowed by the system are not designed for providers. [I think] the systems are inefficient, and new features tend to be "bolt on" features either as products purchased and added from other providers or simply a module created and strapped onto the software. There doesn't seem to be much idea around making things easier for the provider, though they like to state that provider burnout is something they are working on.
You should invest time into taking a training class before using Epic, but once you get the hang of it the usability features are endless! My favorite part about Epic is how it is automated and "trained" to catch user errors that would typically be missed in normal documentation/charting. This ensures accuracy and eliminates errors.
I gave this rating because it is truly a system that flows data extremely well within the NextGen ecosystem. Many times you will find systems that do not want to talk to each other from a data perspective, let alone from a capabilities lens. NextGen Healthcare EHR delivers on this data flow without aggregation to where you are deciding on what not to bring into the chart rather than worrying if it is in available.
I often cannot assign a proper diagnosis under the assessment section; and as mentioned, sometimes (about once a month) the dictation just freezes because "the request has timed out" (even restarting the iPhone/ laptop does not help).
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
You put in support cases through a support portal. [I believe] for no apparent reason, the company decided that their support cannot have access to actual patient records and as a result, it's required that they have to connect remotely to a computer system in our network, and log in as one of our users to do anything. This also entails that they are completely incapable of diagnosing problems and require significant amounts of user input and time to try and begin any sort of work on the problems. [In my opinion] this takes away from patient care and other concerns. Also, while you can put in as detailed a ticket as you want, when you are called, you have to go over the ticket again, as they don't seem to read or care what you put in, as it's more important to them to go over everything in painful detail. Often times you must explain to the tech how the process works. In the past month, we were upgraded overnight with zero warning, which caused issues the following day as we had to update every single computer in our network (over 300) and it requires administrative privileges so couldn't be done by a user. This also doesn't update any information in the programs list, so there's no way to tell whether the update happened or not.
The initial training was good but would have been even better had I been more familiar with the system before taking it. I found learning how to deal with Epic while working in the field at the same time was a (pardon the pun) Epic learning curve. I really think there should be a scribe who does the data entry and others can focus on what they do best.
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
Paid for training, did not help. They trained prior to go-live, but it was so long ahead that users weren't able to function well when it actually happened, they seemed unable to provide adequate support. [In my experience] further support is typically very boilerplate, and is thus not useful, and has additional cost.
It's very important to limit your schedule during the weeks after go live but it is equally important to have a resource that is the lead at the practice that ensures that milestones are met leading up to the go-live date. Someone must be the point person at the practice otherwise milestones will be missed and the implementation will run into problems.
I was attracted by the final note format of ECW. I said then and still say that most EMR's clinical notes are terrible to try to read and follow in orderly fashion by comparison...BUT the devil is in the data entry and that is where "you live" as a clinician. Incredibly frustrating software because of inflexibility and restrictions of multi level data fields that can only be opened one at a time (i.e. no "toggling" between windows... ooen read and close...then reopen other data entry window....then close and repeat if you need to refer back to original window of data. This applies throughout the software and is due to its reliance on SQL architecture from what I have been told). Kills productivity.
Epic gives extensive customization options in terms of utility and view. I have found this to be highly useful and efficient EHR as compared to other EHRs we use in our organization.
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.
I will just share one area that our organization saw the ROI in a very short time period. That is the elimination of a dictation service for most of our specialty group doctors when we introducec Dragon Medical. This functionality brought a tangible benefit and a significant ROI in a short time period.
Being able to track and document all of our services in the same place has made an exceptional improvement in continuity of patient care, both internally across departments (medical/dental/mental health) and externally with specialists and other healthcare organizations on a national scale.
Continuous improvements in Data reporting and analytics make tracking and implementing quality improvement measures throughout the year easy.
Massive improvements to the ELLA training platform, combined with detailed and interactive training materials for all system areas, make onboarding and staff training much easier!
While in some cases, NextGen Healthcare EHR improves efficiency, most practices are not able to reduce staff, they usually have to actually have .5-1 more employees per physician or midlevel provider. These employee roles change and shift throughout the implementation and into the adaptation process. Those staff generally slowly transition to where they are needed next.
