Choosing the right electronic health record (EHR) is critical for a specialty practice. A purpose-built system can streamline workflows and improve care quality, while a generic one often creates friction. This guide covers how to find the best specialty-specific EHR for your practice's needs.

A specialty-specific EHR is an electronic health record system designed to meet the unique needs of a particular medical specialty, such as cardiology or pediatrics. Unlike general EHRs, these systems come with pre-built templates and workflows that align with a specialist's daily tasks. This tailored approach helps improve efficiency and care quality.

The adoption of EHRs is nearly universal, with 96% of U.S. physicians using them. However, the key distinction for modern practices lies in choosing a system that fits their specific focus. This often comes down to understanding the difference between general and specialty-specific solutions.

It's also important to distinguish between an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) and an EHR. An EMR is a digital chart within one practice, while an EHR designed for data sharing across multiple providers. For specialists who coordinate care, an EHR is the superior choice for interoperability.

A general EHR contains core features that can be used in any practice. While these generic EHRs can be modified for specialty use, they often lack specific modules and capabilities — limiting their effectiveness for specialized care.

In contrast, specialty-specific EHRs are designed to meet the unique needs of specialty practices without requiring extensive customization. These systems provide workflows tailored to specific conditions, procedures, and treatments. This alignment is crucial for value-based care models.

Some specialty EHRs offer even deeper, granular-level specificity. For example, a cardiology EHR may have distinct templates for a congenital heart defect specialist versus a coronary artery disease specialist. This ensures the system fully adapts to the needs of different providers and patients.

Specialty-specific EHRs deliver significant advantages over one-size-fits-all systems by addressing the unique clinical and administrative challenges of a field. They are built from the ground up to match a specialist's workflow. This leads to measurable improvements in efficiency, accuracy, and provider satisfaction.

Key benefits include:

Finding the right specialty EHR means evaluating vendors based on your practice's unique workflows, specialty requirements, and growth plans. Below, we compare leading specialty-specific EHR systems — starting with solutions designed for independent practices.

Tebra delivers an all-in-one EHR+ platform that is purpose-built for independent specialty practices. Unlike legacy systems that require juggling multiple vendors, Tebra integrates clinical documentation, billing, patient engagement, and telehealth in a single, cloud-based solution. The platform combines specialty-specific templates with AI-powered automation to reduce administrative burden while maintaining flexibility.

Built with independent providers in mind, Tebra's EHR eliminates the complexity and cost of traditional enterprise systems. The platform includes specialty-specific templates covering dozens of specialties including primary care, psychiatry, pediatrics, OB/GYN, and more. Real-time patient data flows seamlessly between tools, reducing duplicate entry and minimizing errors.

Main features:

Ideal for:

Pricing:

Epic is an enterprise-grade EHR system widely used by large healthcare systems and hospitals. The platform offers comprehensive functionality with robust configurability, though it's typically best suited for organizations with dedicated IT resources. Epic's strength lies in its interoperability — making care coordination easier.

While Epic offers specialty-specific modules, the system enforces standardized best practices that may limit workflow flexibility for independent practices. Implementation is complex and expensive, often requiring 12-18 months and custom development.

Pricing:

ModMed (Modernizing Medicine) delivers specialty-specific EHR platforms with deep clinical content for dermatology, gastroenterology, and ophthalmology. The platform uses AI to suggest documentation and coding, potentially reducing charting time. ModMed's strength is its focus on physician-designed clinical workflows.

However, its specialty-specific approach means practices with multiple specialties may need separate systems or workarounds. The platform works best for mid-sized specialty groups with 5+ providers.

Pricing:

athenaOne combines EHR, practice management, and revenue cycle management in a cloud-based platform. Its standout feature is its billing services, where athenahealth handles claims submission and follow-up. This model works well for practices that want to outsource billing but maintain clinical control.

The tradeoff is that athenaOne's billing-centric design can make clinical workflows feel secondary. Additionally, specialty customization is available but often requires additional configuration and cost.

Pricing:

NextGen offers a modular EHR and practice management platform designed for ambulatory practices. The system provides specialty-specific content packs and customizable templates. It has particular strength in mid-sized multi-specialty groups.

However, users report that NextGen's interface feels dated compared to newer cloud-native platforms. The system may also require more clicks to complete routine tasks than some competitors.

Pricing:

eClinicalWorks delivers a comprehensive EHR with strong population health and quality reporting tools. The platform supports telehealth, patient engagement, and revenue cycle management in a single system. It has integrated Sunoh.ai, an AI-powered medical scribe.

The system's complexity can be overwhelming for small practices, and the interface hasn't kept pace with modern design standards. Plus, training and adoption typically take longer than cloud-native alternatives.

Pricing:

Practice Fusion offers a cloud-based EHR focused on small to medium-sized primary care and specialty practices. The platform emphasizes affordability and ease of use. It has built-in ePrescribing and lab integrations.

The system works well for practices seeking basic EHR functionality without extensive customization needs. However, it lacks some advanced features found in enterprise platforms, and customization options are more limited.

Pricing:

Nextech specializes in EHR solutions for ophthalmology, plastic surgery, dermatology, and orthopedics. The platform integrates practice management, optical dispensing, and ASC management. This makes it particularly strong for surgical specialties.

The system performs best in specialty-focused practices. It may be overly complex for general practitioners or mixed-specialty groups.

Pricing:

SimplePractice targets mental health professionals with a streamlined EHR and practice management platform. The system offers specialty-based treatment plans, appointment reminders, telehealth, and billing in one package. Its interface is modern and intuitive, designed for solo and small group practices.

However, the platform's mental health focus means it lacks features needed for medical specialties — including ePrescribing, lab orders, and medical device integration.

Pricing:

TherapyNotes delivers a web-based EHR built specifically for behavioral health professionals. The platform includes scheduling, billing, insurance claim submission, and telehealth. It offers more features in its base plan than some competitors but with a less polished interface.

The system works well for therapy-focused practices. It lacks medical EHR capabilities for prescribing providers.

Pricing:

Regardless of your specialty, certain core capabilities separate effective EHR systems from those that create more work. These features form the foundation for efficient clinical workflows. They also support accurate billing and positive patient experiences.

The most critical feature is content that matches your clinical reality. This starts with pre-built templates for common visit types, procedures, and documentation unique to your specialty. A great EHR allows you to easily customize these templates to fit your workflow.

Look for tools that accelerate documentation, such as:

Your EHR should not be an island. True interoperability means the system can seamlessly exchange data with labs, pharmacies, and other providers using standards like FHIR and HL7. Tebra's 2024 survey shows 32% of providers cite poor integration as a major pain point.

Key integration capabilities to look for include:

A specialty EHR must provide bank-grade security and ensure full compliance with healthcare regulations. This includes HIPAA and HITECH compliance, with features like data encryption and detailed audit logs. The vendor must sign a business associate agreement (BAA).

The system should also be ONC-certified to meet federal standards. For practices in value-based care programs, look for built-in tools for tracking and reporting on specialty-specific quality measures for programs like MIPS.

A powerful EHR is useless if it's difficult to navigate. According to Tebra's 2024 survey, 45% of providers want improved usability, as limitations can hinder workflows. An effective EHR should have an intuitive interface that minimizes training time.

Look for features that actively optimize your day, such as:

Different types of physicians may use specialty-specific EHRs in the scope of their practices with unique requirements. Let's look at a few examples.

EHRs designed for primary care streamline everyday tasks like scheduling, billing, and patient management. These systems often incorporate automation to minimize administrative burden, connectivity features for seamless communication, and population health tools to track and improve patient outcomes effectively.

To support these needs, primary care EHRs include features like:

Psychiatry and psychology EHRs prioritize confidentiality, patient tracking, and secure documentation. For effective mental health management, these practices require:

OB/GYN EHRs support the complexity of women's health care by simplifying workflows and ensuring comprehensive patient tracking. Key features often include:

Pediatric EHRs address the unique requirements of child healthcare, from growth tracking to specialized compliance standards. These systems must provide:

Choosing an EHR tailored to your specialty can improve efficiency and patient outcomes. Once you have an idea of the EHR you want, refine your choices based on the following factors.

Usability and customization are the top priorities for providers, according to Tebra's 2024 EHR report. Yet, 45% want better usability, and 23% face significant limitations with their current system's design and data entry.

Poor EHR usability can lead to errors that compromise patient safety. It also disrupts provider workflow and contributes to clinician burnout. To combat these issues, it's important to prioritize an EHR solution with a simple, intuitive interface that's easy to use, accurate, and secure. Paying attention to these types of features helps ensure the system streamlines operations rather than create new obstacles.

Integration with existing workflows is a major pain point for 32% of providers, according to Tebra's 2024 EHR report. Another 34% cite inadequate integration as a key driver for wanting to replace their current system.

To ensure smooth data exchange, interoperability, and better productivity, it's important to consider EHRs with seamless integration capabilities that adapt to your practice's needs.

The right EHR should offer a high degree of customization. It should let you define and refine how you capture, access, and use information. This helps support the specific care you provide.

For example, a psychiatry EHR should offer advanced security for clinical charts and detailed templates for treatment plans. This allows providers to track patient progress over time effectively.

An EHR should also include workflow customization features like role-based alerts. This helps improve efficiency by ensuring physicians get urgent lab results and front desk staff see administrative tasks, while minimizing disruptions.

Take these 3 steps to ensure you choose the best EHR for your needs:

Once you've secured staff buy-in and openness towards new technology, take stock of the health IT tools already in use at your practice to get specific about your current and future needs. Then, perform a needs assessment to identify inefficiencies and operational gaps in your workflows to understand how a new EHR might help address them.

Meet with EHR vendors and evaluate each based on usability characteristics and functions to determine if the system offers robust features that enhance patient care and streamline operations.

Review each system's ability to deliver in key areas, including charting, privacy and security, HIPAA and HITECH compliance, prescriptions, lab and results management, clinical decision support, and quality improvement.

Schedule and run demos with 5–10 potential EHR vendors that meet your practice's specific operational and growth needs. Ensure your key staff are present for the demos so they can weigh in with observations and questions.

Here are some tips to help you get the most out of the process:

Tebra offers a list of questions you can ask EHR vendors during the EHR evaluation process.

To get the most out of your specialty-specific EHR, follow these best practices:

Involve key stakeholders in your practice, such as lead physicians, clinicians, front office staff, billing team, administration, and board members. This will help your practice develop a clear strategy for how the EHR will add value to your healthcare mission.

Create an EHR implementation and training plan that details how you'll integrate the EHR system into your workflow. This process generally involves the following steps:

Choosing a specialty-specific EHR is one of the most impactful decisions you'll make for your practice. By understanding your specialty's unique requirements and evaluating systems on usability and integration, you can find a platform that enhances care quality.

The right EHR becomes the operational backbone of your practice. It connects clinical workflows with billing, patient engagement, and growth strategies. Prioritize solutions that align with your specialty's needs and support your long-term vision.

Ready to see how a purpose-built EHR can transform your specialty practice? Explore Tebra's EHR platform or schedule a personalized demo to see the system in action.