Canvas Medical
7.5
Overall
Recommend
Best for
Digitally native primary care and specialty clinics
Watch-out
Buyers who want a turnkey “do nothing” install
Canvas Medical vs Elation Health
Primary care and outpatient clinics leaving an older EHR often choose between Canvas Medical and Elation Health. Both are cloud charting systems for outpatient care with no hospital module. Canvas suits clinics with their own engineers, who can build new workflows into the chart through its software kit and APIs, and Elation suits independent and multi-site primary care practices that want a clean chart with billing services from the same company.
Elation Health
7.4
Overall
Recommend
Best for
Independent and multi-site primary care clinics that want a modern ambulatory chart
Watch-out
Specialty groups that need deep procedure or hospital workflows
How they differ
| Axis | Canvas Medical | Elation Health |
|---|---|---|
| Day-to-day charting | Clinicians have to accept a different charting model, and results depend on whether they do. | Stronger Clinicians find Elation's outpatient chart cleaner than many older systems, its highest mark at 7.7. |
| Building your own workflows | Stronger A software development kit and FHIR APIs let a clinic's engineers add workflows to the chart, Canvas's highest mark at 7.9. |
Elation offers read and write APIs, and is sold as a ready-made primary care chart. |
| Fit for primary care | Canvas serves digitally native primary care and specialty clinics, often running new care models. | Stronger Elation is designed around primary care, including tools for managing each doctor's patient panel. |
| Switching from your old EHR | Stronger Canvas scores 7.2 for the switch, which is lighter than an enterprise EHR project but still means migrating charts, building interfaces, and training staff. |
Elation scores 7.0 for the same chart migration, interface building, and staff training. |
| Knowing what you will pay | Stronger Canvas publishes a Builder plan at $4,000 a month with unlimited users and the first 1,000 monthly active patients included. |
Elation does not publish a list price on its main pricing page, so practices get a custom quote. |
| Access to your own data | Similar One Canvas customer describes getting a real-time copy of its production database for reporting. |
Similar Elation offers read and write APIs that outside tools can use to pull and update records. |
What buyers say
“I like Elation the best. Very configurable and great read/write APIs.”
Mad2DOG256 · r/healthIT · · source
“Micropractice using elation for 4-5 years now. Love it. good design, intuitive use. everything included (patient portal, e-rx including controlled meds, fax / document management, etc.).”
formless1 · r/PrivatePracticeDocs · · source
“Canvas Medical is incredibly responsive, and I often get messages from multiple team members”
CEO/President · KLAS Research user comment · · source
“Canvas Medical has a vision. The delivery of that vision is where they fall short.”
Director · KLAS Research user comment · · source
Verdict
Canvas Medical is for a clinic or digital health company with its own engineers that plans to build custom workflows into the chart and wants a published price. Elation Health is for an independent or multi-site primary care practice that wants a chart its clinicians will use from day one, with billing available from the same company.
Walk away from both if you are a health system standardized on Epic or Oracle Health, or if you expect an install that needs no changes to how your clinic works.