All EMR software companies offering free Electronic Medical Records systems (EMR systems) seem to have disappeared with the most prominent vendor Practice Fusion EHR getting acquired by AllScripts earlier this year. This has meant that healthcare providers with a low budget and very basic requirements must now choose one of the paid EHR software options.

This is not all bad news for medical providers seeking a viable EMR software solution in today’s market, because the very idea behind the free EMR systems was to build a user-base with the intent to sell to a bigger EHR software company or make money by selling add-on services to clients. Eventually, both options meant the focus was on the exit strategy rather than on pure and passionate software development focused on fixing prevalent issues of the market.

The advantage of this business strategy behind the free EMR system has helped raise the level of awareness and knowledge among software buyers across the country about what to look for when choosing an EMR software vendor. Providers now demand more for the money that they pay with features to support their specific specialty and workflow at the forefront of their search.

The EMR software market will continue to expand and evolve with bigger business plans and ideas, but the question is when will the market see vendors like Google to revolutionize the industry with innovation such as artificial intelligence (AI) and predictive analytics at the core of the software platform designed to do much more than any currently available Electronic Health Records solution provider.

It remains to be seen whether that exercise will give birth to yet another great “business idea” or revolutionize the world of digital healthcare systems with a more “meaningful” and financially viable software option for providers across multiple specialties and practices of all sizes.