EMR Software Comparison: AllScripts vs ChartLogic vs eClinicalWorks
This paper compares three leading Electronic Medical Records (EMR) software applications—AllScripts, ChartLogic, and eClinicalWorks—across key evaluation criteria including delivery model (licensed vs. SaaS), hardware requirements, HIPAA compliance, integration capabilities, usability, and pricing. The analysis finds significant variation in cost structure, with ChartLogic offering the lowest entry price and AllScripts commanding the highest licensing fees. eClinicalWorks leads in document management and workflow design, while ChartLogic offers the most robust integrated practice management. The paper concludes by situating each product within the broader EMR market landscape, noting how vendor strategy aligns with clinic size and automation needs.
- Introduction to EMR Software Selection: Scope, key design criteria, and vendors selected
- Delivery Models and Technical Requirements: Licensed vs. SaaS options and hardware specs
- Feature and Functionality Comparison: Analytics, document management, and workflow tools
- Pricing and Cost Analysis: Cost breakdown for all three EMR vendors
- Market Positioning and Conclusion: Vendor strategy by clinic size and market tier
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What makes this paper effective
- Uses consistent evaluation criteria (delivery model, features, cost, hardware) applied to all three vendors, making the comparison easy to follow.
- Grounds claims with specific pricing figures obtained directly from vendor sales contacts, lending credibility to the cost analysis section.
- Cites peer-reviewed sources to support design criteria such as security, usability, and system integration, anchoring the practical comparison in academic context.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates systematic comparative analysis — a core research technique in applied technology studies. Rather than evaluating each product in isolation, it establishes shared criteria upfront and then applies them uniformly, allowing meaningful side-by-side conclusions. This approach is especially useful in technology selection papers where decision-makers need structured, apples-to-apples evaluations.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens by establishing the scope and selection criteria, then moves through a multi-part comparative body covering delivery model, technical specs, features, and pricing. Each analytical section adds a new dimension to the comparison before the conclusion synthesizes findings by market segment. The structure is logical and tightly focused, typical of an undergraduate-level applied IT or health informatics course assignment.
Introduction to EMR Software Selection
As of 2011, there were over 75 different vendors of Electronic Medical Records (EMR) software applications providing solutions to healthcare facilities in the United States alone (Ulutas, Ulutas, & Nabiyev, 2011). The key design criteria for EMR systems are security (Neupert & Mundie, 2009), usability (James, Garrett, & Krevit, 2009), and the ability to integrate with legacy systems (Agarwal, Milch, & Van Kuiken, 2009). This comparison examines AllScripts, ChartLogic, and eClinicalWorks — three of the leading EMR software application providers offering software suites in the current market.
Delivery Models and Technical Requirements
All three applications are first compared in terms of how these companies deliver them — whether through licensed software or over the Internet via the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model. Each application also supports databases, requires an operating system, and has varying degrees of functionality and performance. All are HIPAA compliant, which is a major requirement of the U.S. government for all reporting systems (Ulutas, Ulutas, & Nabiyev, 2011). Minimum hardware requirements, pricing, costs, and storage requirements are also included in this analysis.
AllScripts, ChartLogic, and eClinicalWorks are all delivered on licensed software models. Clinics, hospitals, and treatment centers can install each of these applications on their own servers and configure them precisely to their unique needs. Of the three, only ChartLogic also offers a SaaS option, which allows clinics, hospitals, and treatment centers to subscribe to the software application much like a subscriber to a telephone or cable service. Charges are billed monthly, and the application is delivered over the Internet via any browser. This approach to software distribution has the advantage of providing applications that are highly configurable over the Internet, easily customized and accessible, and cost-effective, since only the portion of the application actually used generates a monthly fee (James, Garrett, & Krevit, 2009). The disadvantage of this approach involves security and compliance with HIPAA standards, which can become expensive over time (Agarwal, Milch, & Van Kuiken, 2009). As a result, SaaS-based EMR records management systems can often be more expensive to lease and configure compared to their licensed counterparts.
Each of the applications compared also supports Microsoft SQL Server integration and medical lab integration across thirteen different standards. All three require the Windows NT Server or XP Server operating systems, an Intel-based system with a minimum of 2 GB of storage and 4 GB of memory, and a TCP/IP network interface card.
Feature and Functionality Comparison
All three applications vary significantly in their use of role-based analytics, ease of customization with templates, integrated practice management, and integrated document management. Of the three, ChartLogic includes the most comprehensive integrated practice management module, with integration extending to many of the financial accounting applications commonly used in clinics, hospitals, and treatment centers. The depth of integrated document management in eClinicalWorks — and its support for workflow design and updating — is superior to the other applications in this comparison. Business process management (BPM) functionality is also evident in the eClinicalWorks application, including support for an extensive catalog of forms and structured query screens that make medical records management and updating more streamlined compared to the other products examined here.
References
Agarwal, S., Milch, B., & Van Kuiken, S. (2009). Health care: Taking medical records online. The McKinsey Quarterly, (3), 56.
James, D., Garrett, M., & Krevit, L. (2009). Discovering discovery tools: Evaluating vendors and implementing Web 2.0 environments. Library Hi Tech, 27(2), 268–276.
Neupert, P., & Mundie, C. (2009). Personal health management systems: Applying the full power of software to improve the quality and efficiency of care. Health Affairs, 28(2), 390–392.
Ulutas, M., Ulutas, G., & Nabiyev, V. (2011). Medical image security and EPR hiding using Shamir's secret sharing scheme. The Journal of Systems and Software, 84(3), 341.
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