| Feature | Hero EMR | OP | PCC | athena | DrChrono |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WHO Charts (< 2 yrs) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| CDC Charts (2+ yrs) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Auto Chart Switch by Age | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Chart Annotation | Yes | Limited | Yes | No | No |
| Parent-Friendly Print | Yes | Yes | Yes | Basic | Basic |
| BMI Percentile Tracking | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Head Circumference | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Growth Velocity | Yes | No | Yes | No | No |
| Overlay Multiple Children | No | No | No | No | No |
| Preemie Adjusted Age | Yes | Yes | Partial | No | No |
| Specialty Charts (Down Syndrome, etc.) | Yes | Yes | Partial | No | No |
Growth charts are to pediatricians what EKGs are to cardiologists: a clinical tool we interpret dozens of times daily, where the quality of the visual display directly affects diagnostic accuracy and our ability to communicate with families. Yet most EMR vendors treat the growth chart module as an afterthought, a generic plotting library dropped into the clinical interface. Our team compared growth chart rendering across five platforms, looking not just at whether they display growth data but at how the experience holds up during a real clinic day.
Why Rendering Quality Matters
A growth chart is a clinical narrative told in curves and percentiles. A child who drifts from the 50th percentile to the 25th over three visits may be following a normal channel shift or showing the first sign of failure to thrive, and the difference between catching that trend and missing it often comes down to how clearly the chart presents the data. The chart is also a counseling tool. When a worried parent asks whether their child is growing normally, the display on your screen becomes the shared visual you teach from. A clean chart builds confidence in that conversation; a cluttered one creates more questions than it answers.
Platform-by-Platform Notes
PCC: The One We Reach For
PCC's reputation for growth chart quality is deserved, and in our comparison it came out as the display we would most want in front of us during a growth conversation. The percentile bands are defined without being busy, data points read instantly, and the direct annotation feature is the quiet star: you can note a formula change, an illness, or a family discussion directly on the curve, and that context travels with the chart to every future visit. The parent print output is clear and professional. The gaps are at the edges: specialty charts cover common conditions but not the rarer growth standards, and corrected age for preemies requires manual activation in some configurations, a friction point our reviewers hit more than once.
Hero EMR: Feature-Complete and Fast
Hero EMR's charts load quickly inside the encounter note, handle the WHO-to-CDC transition at age two automatically, and support on-chart annotation much like PCC's. It is the most feature-complete implementation in this comparison: growth velocity displays alongside the standard curves, specialty charts for Down syndrome, Turner syndrome, and achondroplasia are built in, and corrected gestational age applies automatically for preemies. Visually we would put it just behind PCC; the rendering is crisp, though the default view packs in slightly more information than some of our reviewers wanted at a glance. If your panel includes many children who need specialty charts or velocity tracking, this breadth is a genuine advantage.
Office Practicum: Solid Foundation
OP's growth charts are functionally strong, with accurate WHO and CDC rendering and automatic chart switching by age. Specialty chart support is deep, which reflects the company's pediatric roots. The visual presentation is a step behind PCC and Hero, with percentile lines that blur together in the middle ranges, and annotation is limited to text notes attached to data points rather than freeform markup. One thoughtful touch: the parent printout includes plain-language explanatory text about what percentiles mean, which saves a little counseling time with every handout.
athenahealth: Functional but Utilitarian
athenahealth's charts display the necessary data with a density that slows quick reads during a busy clinic. There is no automatic WHO-to-CDC transition; providers select the chart type manually, a small but endlessly repeated friction. Annotation is not supported, the print output was not designed with parents in mind, and specialty charts and corrected gestational age would require workarounds. It works, but it was clearly not built by someone who reads growth curves forty times a day.
DrChrono: Tablet-Optimized
DrChrono's charts benefit from the platform's tablet-first design and look genuinely good on an iPad held up next to an exam table, which is exactly how many DrChrono practices use them. Desktop rendering is less impressive, and the module lacks annotation, specialty charts, and automatic chart transitions. Corrected age for preemies means manual calculation. As a parent-communication surface it is pleasant; as a longitudinal clinical tool it is thin.
Where We Landed
Growth chart rendering can look like a minor line item in an EMR evaluation, but for those of us who consult these charts many times a day, display quality has a real effect on both clinical efficiency and family conversations. PCC produced the charts we would most want on screen during a growth discussion, with Hero EMR close behind and offering the broadest feature set, including velocity and specialty charts. Office Practicum is dependable with the deepest respect for pediatric edge cases in its chart library. The general-purpose platforms trail in ways that reflect their broader priorities. If growth monitoring is central to your practice, and in pediatrics it always is, weight this comparison accordingly when you evaluate.