Middle East & Africa EMR 2021
Vendor Performance and Market Energy

Cerner Continues to Lead in Performance, with Customers Reporting Stronger Relationships

Regional Decisions Bolster Dedalus (DXC) & Cloud Solutions; Satisfaction High with Epic though Cost Is a Deterrent

Dedalus solutions have been chosen for the highest number of hospitals in the Middle East since 2016. This is thanks to the vendor’s April 2021 acquisition of DXC Technology, whose Enterprise Management solution was chosen for a large 2019 contract in Egypt (in partnership with Vodafone Egypt). Of the estimated six organizations live on Enterprise Management, KLAS has collected feedback from three. While the impact of the Dedalus acquisition is still to be seen, customer satisfaction has increased in recent years as DXC Technology has improved accessibility to knowledgeable support resources. Development is slower than customers would like. Cloud Solutions (the IT branch and subsidiary of Dr. Sulaiman Al-Habib Medical Group) has had success with their early commercial ventures in Saudi Arabia. Their VIDA solution was selected for greenfield hospitals in three health clusters: Al-Qassim, Jazan, and Najran. Early feedback from clients—who are typically 50-bed hospitals that previously used paper records—indicates successful deployments and high satisfaction driven by VIDA’s ease of use and clear dashboards. There are some hiccups, such as system slowness. Epic customers continue to report strong partnerships and high satisfaction with support, which increased during the COVID-19 pandemic in the form of virtual trainings and new dashboards. High satisfaction has not translated to significant growth, as many prospective clients view Epic as being beyond their price range. Two of Epic’s five clients in the Middle East have contracted in the last five years.

Middle East/Africa EMR Landscape

Regional Summaries

For details about other Middle East countries, see the Vendor Insights section in the full report.

About This Report

Data for this report comes from two sources: (1) KLAS performance data and (2) KLAS market share data.

KLAS Performance Data

Each year, KLAS interviews thousands of healthcare professionals about the IT solutions and services their organizations use. For this report, interviews were conducted over the last 18 months using KLAS’ standard quantitative evaluation for healthcare software, which is composed of 16 numeric ratings questions and 4 yes/no questions, all weighted equally. Combined, the ratings for these questions make up the overall performance score, which is measured on a 100-point scale. The questions are organized into six customer experience pillars—culture, loyalty, operations, product, relationship, and value.

Sample Sizes

KLAS Market Share Data

In this report, any given vendor’s EMR market share is defined as the total number of inpatient hospital facilities (as opposed to organizations, which may be comprised of multiple hospitals) whose most recent contract is with that vendor. For example, if a vendor signs a contract with a four-hospital organization, that vendor’s market share would increase by four. KLAS acknowledges that in some countries the term “hospital” may be used to refer to an organization with multiple inpatient facilities. However, in this report, “hospital” is used to refer to a single inpatient facility.

Hospitals that have contracted for a new EMR normally continue to use their previous system for one or more years before/after going live with a new one. During this time, the hospital might be considered a customer of both vendors, but only the most recently contracted vendor receives market share credit in this report. Likewise, there may be a space of time between when a previous vendor’s contract ends and a new contract is formalized. In these cases, the previously contracted vendor is recognized as the current vendor until the new agreement is formalized. However, provider organizations have the final say on their own status, so in rare cases when an organization has directly informed KLAS of a decision, a win might be counted before a contract is legally signed.

In cases where two or more healthcare organizations join together to make an EMR purchase decision, KLAS regards the decision as a single contract even if multiple contracts are signed with each participating entity because there was a single, collective decision-making and selection process.

Where Does Market Share Data Come From?

The market share data reported in this study is based on hospital EMR contracts that were in place (primarily) in Arabic-speaking countries in Western Asia and Egypt as of 31 December 2020. The data comes from multiple sources, including publicly available information and the numerous conversations KLAS has each year with provider organizations around the globe.

KLAS also provides vendors with the opportunity to report their annual hospital EMR wins. In all cases, KLAS makes a best-effort attempt to use third-party sources and our vast provider network to independently validate all recently signed EMR contracts. While KLAS believes the data in this report is directionally correct, we acknowledge that some variation may result from lack of vendor transparency/participation.

A Note about Terminology and What Counts as an EMR

Though the nomenclature used to describe the core patient record used throughout a hospital varies from region to region or language to language (e.g., EHR, EPR, EMR, EPD, EPJ, DPI, KIS, HCE, PEP, etc.), the term that will be used in this research is EMR (electronic medical record).

The EMR is the core record used by hospitals for day-to-day clinical tasks, such as clinical noting and documentation, ordering, results reporting, and ePrescribing. Some systems in this research may not include all of these clinical functions, but they are all viewed by their users as their core patient record. Solutions used solely for document management or scanning are excluded from this research even though they are the primary clinical system in use at some hospitals.

Additionally, the term “vendor” is used throughout this report to refer to the company supplying the EMR technology. KLAS recognizes that different countries may have different terminology, including “supplier.”