Hey Brendan - what do you think of Healthie and Medplum? We’re currently using Healthie, but it gives us so many paper cuts, so are looking to build something on top of Medplum. https://www.medplum.com/
Hey Ben - I like both. Lot of variables for EHR selection that are specific to your business - what sort of virtual/hybrid care, what conditions you'll treat, and your GTM all matter. What challenges are you having today with Healthie?
Healthie looked fantastic on paper, with their API-first approach, mobile app, etc. Then we were puzzled by many weird behaviors with their API. One silly example: their Appointments webhooks send `id` in string format for C/R/U, but in number format for Delete. We also had many problems with their appointment reminders being sent to patients when they shouldn't be. Faced weird challenges with user registration and authentication via the API when the user already has a Healthie account with another clinic. As we dived deeper into their platform, we ran into many similar minor problems. Their support wasn't great either.
Healthie's UI confusing and slow. I know providers love to hate EHRs, but our providers absolutely hate the UI. We found ourselves working around the Healthie UI, adding new tools like Monday.com and our custom portal UI to the point where we thought maybe it'd be more streamlined if we built our own UI on top of Medplum.
Gotcha. Well, regardless of migrating off, hopefully you've conveyed those issues and feedback to them - I'm sure they'd be interested to resolve.
Out of curiosity, what type of care does your company provide? How tech enabled / focused are you? I think Medplum is great but definitely has less out of the box (although that's changing every day as they ship so much)
We did try. We talked with the Healthie team many times, and even with their CEO once. We figured we were probably too small for them to prioritize.
We provide both telehealth and offline care, and have a small but solid engineering team. We like Medplum, but like you said, wish it was a little more mature and feature complete. We're at a point where we think it'll be faster for us to build things on top of Medplum rather than trying to work around Healthie, but can't be sure until we do a proper assessment.
Clear now to me after reading your article is that reason why Amazon bought OneMedical is as a dogfooding platform for a headless certified EHR . Amazon saw Oracle buy EHR company Cerner and said we can do better .
Thanks Brendan! Do you think Athena is still the leader for programmatic access? E.g. something that can be orchestrated and treated as headless to a large degree, but also conveniently has a UI / workflows built into a rich EHR?
Yeah, athenahealth has the most wide ranging set of APIs today. They definitely have a bit of a dated look and feel, but are a common choice as virtual first care practices hit a maturity and scale
Hey Brendan - what do you think of Healthie and Medplum? We’re currently using Healthie, but it gives us so many paper cuts, so are looking to build something on top of Medplum. https://www.medplum.com/
Hey Ben - I like both. Lot of variables for EHR selection that are specific to your business - what sort of virtual/hybrid care, what conditions you'll treat, and your GTM all matter. What challenges are you having today with Healthie?
Healthie looked fantastic on paper, with their API-first approach, mobile app, etc. Then we were puzzled by many weird behaviors with their API. One silly example: their Appointments webhooks send `id` in string format for C/R/U, but in number format for Delete. We also had many problems with their appointment reminders being sent to patients when they shouldn't be. Faced weird challenges with user registration and authentication via the API when the user already has a Healthie account with another clinic. As we dived deeper into their platform, we ran into many similar minor problems. Their support wasn't great either.
Healthie's UI confusing and slow. I know providers love to hate EHRs, but our providers absolutely hate the UI. We found ourselves working around the Healthie UI, adding new tools like Monday.com and our custom portal UI to the point where we thought maybe it'd be more streamlined if we built our own UI on top of Medplum.
Gotcha. Well, regardless of migrating off, hopefully you've conveyed those issues and feedback to them - I'm sure they'd be interested to resolve.
Out of curiosity, what type of care does your company provide? How tech enabled / focused are you? I think Medplum is great but definitely has less out of the box (although that's changing every day as they ship so much)
We did try. We talked with the Healthie team many times, and even with their CEO once. We figured we were probably too small for them to prioritize.
We provide both telehealth and offline care, and have a small but solid engineering team. We like Medplum, but like you said, wish it was a little more mature and feature complete. We're at a point where we think it'll be faster for us to build things on top of Medplum rather than trying to work around Healthie, but can't be sure until we do a proper assessment.
Great post. Have you looked at Zus? https://zushealth.com/
I perhaps know it a bit intimately.
Brendan, you have my brain buzzing here. I just wish it wasn't approaching 1am. It'll all be worth it if you and I can arrange to talk sometime soon.
So, let's talk!
Any time Dave, feel free to email me at brendanjkeeler@gmail.com
Fantastic opinion/analysis piece @Brendan. And also bullseye question by @Ben below (literally on same crossroad).
One new thing to also highlight - HIPAA zapier which can solve the interoperability piece potentially: https://www.keragon.com/
Clear now to me after reading your article is that reason why Amazon bought OneMedical is as a dogfooding platform for a headless certified EHR . Amazon saw Oracle buy EHR company Cerner and said we can do better .
The market that is ripe for this is the mental health, behavioral health space. It's been owned by a couple of players for the last 20 years.
https://www.canvasmedical.com feels close to being a headless and configurable EHR
Hey Rob!
Yes, they are increasingly popular, but didn't really have much market presence when I wrote this piece.
I will note that today 1. they are not a certified EHR and 2. a variety of their APIs are read-only.
I think they show a clear understanding of the market, though, so I'm very optimistic about what they're building
Thanks Brendan! Do you think Athena is still the leader for programmatic access? E.g. something that can be orchestrated and treated as headless to a large degree, but also conveniently has a UI / workflows built into a rich EHR?
Hey Rob!
Yeah, athenahealth has the most wide ranging set of APIs today. They definitely have a bit of a dated look and feel, but are a common choice as virtual first care practices hit a maturity and scale