Will Varian's EMR restrain company growth?

Will Varian's EMR Aria restrain company growth?

With the nation finally climbing out of the recession, and hospitals on the brink of a big recovery due to admissions from a major flu season, Linear Accelerator manufacturers should see substantial increases in orders. Government incentives for purchasing of electronic medical record systems could also drive purchases of software packages and associated equipment.   Most companies package their software offerings with major equipment purchases and sometimes limit operation of their most advanced equipment to their proprietary software only. As medical management in radiation oncology becomes more complex – many offices are moving beyond just record and verify software and are demanding robust EMR software as well -  some traditionally hardware focused companies may stand to benefit, or lose, because of their software.

Varian may be one of the losers due to their cumbersome ARIA software package. Marketed as a complete software package and providing a “paperless” solution, ARIA is far too complex and does none of the simple everyday tasks well. Obviously written by an engineer with little clinical input from the end users, ARIA is a major physician dissatisfier,  as they  find daily tasks much more time consuming. While treatment time on machines has greatly improved, delays at the console due to software hiccups are commonplace. The software also appears quite unstable when challenged by networks and server connections between multiple offices.

The competition is limited  but does seem to be considerably ahead of Varian. The opportunity to pick up hardware sales in this space due to efficient and user  friendly software is significant. ASTRO, the national meeting for Radiation Oncology starts this weekend. It will be interesting to see how many new software launches and announcements of upgrades occur.

 

Michael E. Kasper MD FACRO

This author consults with leading institutions through GLG