Black Book Rankings, a division of Black Book Market Research, polled 880 EHR consultants, analysts, managers and support team members and found that nine of 10 agree that the majority of EHR vendors currently implemented will fail to sustain operations by the time Meaningful Use Stage 3 is fully implemented.

"Many mid-market vendors, particularly those with niche focus on medical and surgical specialists, and alternative care delivery settings are pushing government initiatives for industry-wide innovation, connectivity and usability and gaining replacement market share," said Doug Brown, managing partner of Black Book, according to a company release.

82 percent of insiders are confident that well-funded, inventive small vendors in the specialist sectors should have better foundations for viability than those who failed to resolve the fundamental flaws caused by being all things to all physicians, according to a release.

Black Book survey findings include the following:

• 90 percent of insiders expect the majority of existing vendors will have merged, been acquired or ceased operations within five years;
• 88 percent of insiders ascertain that most of these vendors will falter because they pushed usability issues to the back burner in order to capitalize on the incentive spoils of Meaningful Use achievement;
• 77 percent of vendors participating in the survey admit that the hard costs of replacing lost clients is one of their most pressing revenue generation concerns; and
• 71 percent of EHR vendor employees expect to have changed jobs within the industry at least two more times in the next three years.