Healthcare providers are increasingly looking to EHRs and third-party population health management solutions to help them with value-based care.

A recent Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) survey found that value-based payment programs doubled since 2015. Nearly three-quarters of executives in the HFMA survey said their organizations achieved positive financial results, including return on investment, from value-based payment programs.

Although providers expect value-based programs to continue to increase, the new Sage Growth Partners survey found dissatisfaction with EHRs and concern they are not helping enough in value-based care. The report found 64% of respondents said EHRs haven’t delivered many critical value-based tools. At least 60% of respondents said they are looking for value-based solutions beyond EHRs.

The survey included a finding that will likely get the attention of EHR and population health management vendors — half of respondents said they are somewhat or highly likely to switch population health management vendors over the next three years.

Nearly three-quarters of survey respondents have had an EHR for at least three years. About half also have third-party population health management solutions. These findings offer a glimpse into the dissatisfaction as well as opportunity in population health management.

The executives surveyed said there are issues with interoperability, addressing social determinants of health, patient engagement, stakeholder coordination and risk analytics. They also spoke of health systems having trouble aggregating and using data from numerous EHR systems and other data sources.

These issues have led half to two-thirds of healthcare executives turning to population health management or do-it-yourself solutions beyond EHRs “to compensate for the lack of these capabilities within their EHRs.” Many of those executives said population health management solutions enabled their value-based success. Those successes are also coming at a lower cost than the investments in EHRs.

The study authors predicted more healthcare executives will look beyond EHRs in the coming years to help with value-based contracting. They said “suboptimal tools” that manage care and costs for populations won’t be enough in coming years.

“As (value-based care) reaches the tipping point, and as they take on programs with greater risk and greater complexity, they will need to continue looking beyond their EHRs to get the functionality they need,” the authors wrote.