Could Apple or Amazon Make a Dent in the Hospital EHR Market?

I have posted previous notes about the ambitions of both Apple and Amazon in the healthcare market (see: What Are the Consequences of Big Tech Entering the Healthcare Market?; Three Major Corporations Will Form Healthcare Company for Their Employees). A recent article asked the question as to whether either could make a dent in it (see: Could Amazon or Apple actually make a dent in the EHR market?). Below is an excerpt from the article

What with rumors swirling that Apple and Amazon are each considering ways to drive deeper into healthcare, including EHRs and telehealth, it’s time for a reality check. The central question is whether even technology stalwarts such as Amazon, Apple and their ilk could, in fact, build an EHR from scratch and then gain enough market share to make the whole endeavor a worthwhile investment. Yes, if anyone could accomplish that feat, Amazon and Apple are chief among them....Two prominent industry analysts said that any play for a significant piece of the healthcare sector by these two tech giants – such as building a new EHR – would likely prove dubious.....It’s worth pausing to note that what has thus far been reported is based on unnamed sources....That means whatever work the vendors are doing, even if it is currently on developing electronic health records software could, in time, take on a different shape than the EHRs companies like eClinicalWorks, Epic, Cerner, Allscripts and athenahealth -- which financial analysts said Apple should acquire -- currently offer today. Indeed, rather than trying to displace the current crop of EHRs, Chilmark’s Moore speculated that the companies would likely target the next level above the EHR to enable consumers to better control their own health data.

Here's some of the major reasons why I think that the current, leading EHR products such as those of Cerner and Epic are vulnerable to competitive pressures:

• There is a long history of the dominant LIS and RIS software companies becoming ossified, inefficient, and vulnerable to competition. They were replaced by more modern systems from new market entrants. This was, in part, due to the fact that the older and once dominant systems were written in old code and were less functional.
• Today's dominant EHRs like Cerner and Epic have been frequently shown to be inefficient in terms of wasting the time and energy of the physicians and nurses that interact with them. Healthcare is the only industry where IT increases the workload of the professionals in the field rather than increasing their efficiency. 
• Because the large EHR vendors operate quasi-monopolies and their is little competition in the market, the cost of such systems is higher than in any other industries. This makes them susceptible to new products with a lower price point. 
• The model for today's EHR data is based on the organizational schema of the previous tabbed paper records which makes little sense in today's environment. Medical records need to be organized and optimized to answer queries such as: (1) Tell me what diagnostic information supports this patient's current diagnosis? (2) How should this patient be treated in the future? (3) What diseases will this patent develop in the future?
• Healthcare is extending far out into the community and becoming much more consumer-centric. EHRs are designed to be hospital-centric but hospital design is evolving as indicated by the development of bedless hospitals (see: The Design of Bedless Hospitals Continue to Evolve Based on Cost and Technology; Some Additional Ideas About the Bedless Hospitals of the Future). EHRs need to be both more decentralized and consumer-centric. 
• Large, hospital-based, monolithic EHRs containing all of the information about patients pose a security threat such as the now common ransomware attacks (see: US hospital pays $55,000 to hackers after ransomware attack). A more decentralized, community based system would be less vulnerable.