An Advanced Digital Market: Middle East/Africa EHR 2024

The healthcare IT markets in the Middle East and Africa are seeing high energy and expansion. Healthcare organizations in the Middle East especially are moving beyond core EHR capabilities and increasing their digital strategies to go deeper across the enterprise. The Middle East & Africa 2024 report is the first report in the region that not only analyzes customer satisfaction with their core EHR but also looks into the broader portfolio they are using from their EHR vendors—analyzing organizations’ adoption and satisfaction of EHR vendors’ offerings in other clinical modules and areas such as revenue cycle management (RCM), patient engagement, data analytics, and more.

A Breakdown of Module Adoption

As said above, a big differentiator in this report compared to past reports in the region is a deeper dive into functionalities offered by vendors and adopted by healthcare organizations beyond core EHR capabilities. We interviewed organizations about the modules they are using from their EHR vendors in three main categories: (1) clinical modules outside the core EHR, (2) administrative/financial modules, and (3) other modules encompassing data-driven modules, other care settings, and more. 

It is no surprise that clinical and administrative modules from EHR vendors are broadly adopted in the region, though many organizations are now pushing to use the clinical and administrative data they are generating to drive better decisions and patient care across the enterprise, and private organizations are frequently working with their EHR vendors to meet their billing needs. Read the report for further breakdowns on each of these three categories with insights on module-level adoption and how well those modules are meeting organizations’ needs.

What Are Some Trends in the Market?

Most major organizations in the Middle East particularly have adopted EHRs and achieved deep adoption of core documenting/prescribing capabilities. Now, energy is rapidly growing in the region around RCM, especially amid Saudi Arabia’s privatization of many hospitals and health centers through Vision 2030. Currently, a mix of EHR vendors and third-party vendors are used to supply billing/RCM capabilities. In this report, we found that adoption and satisfaction with RCM solutions offered by EHR vendors is varied, and many organizations identified RCM as a needed area for optimization. They are keeping their eyes on those pieces and expecting developments and improvements moving forward.

One element of a global vendor partnership that is important to many healthcare organizations is how well a vendor can localize their solution to meet customer needs. Local regulations, in particular, drive this need. For this report, KLAS asked organizations to report on how well their vendor localizes to meet country-specific needs. Data shows an overall trend that customers are seeing strong localization by vendors that are focused primarily in the Middle East and Asia, whereas localization is perceived as somewhat weaker for broader vendors who are in many global markets.

Complementary to this report, KLAS’ upcoming report on Global HIT Trends shows that data analytics and AI are top considerations for provider organizations in the Middle East and Africa. There is a lot of interest in utilizing the data gathered by the EHR to drive greater efficiencies and further patient engagement. KLAS will keep a finger on the pulse of these topics going forward and share findings through reports and summits.

Reports to Watch For

Market energy is high in this region, and we are excited that we can continue to dive deeper to show more insights into what vendors and healthcare organizations are doing and prioritizing. Get more insights into these trends and the broad portfolios of global HIT vendors by reading the report.

Note: While this report gives some high-level information on market share, you can see more in-depth data in the Global (Non-US) EMR Market Share 2023 report, which will be followed up with a 2024 data set in a new report within the next couple of months. Likewise, keep an eye out for the upcoming Global (Non-US) HIT Trends report to see how provider organizations in different regions are prioritizing their HIT initiatives. 

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