Wal-Mart Plans to Market Digital Health Records System

[CC-Conrad Clyburn-MedForeSight]

Colleagues,

As reported in the New York Times ... Wal-Mart Stores is striding into the market for electronic health records, seeking to bring the technology into the mainstream for physicians in small offices, where most of America’s doctors practice medicine...

The company plans to team its Sam’s Club division with Dell for computers and eClinicalWorks, a fast-growing private company, for software. Wal-Mart says its package deal of hardware, software, installation, maintenance and training will make the technology more accessible and affordable, undercutting rival health information technology suppliers by as much as half.

“We’re a high-volume, low-cost company,” said Marcus Osborne, senior director for health care business development at Wal-Mart. “And I would argue that mentality is sorely lacking in the health care industry.”

Read on at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/business/11record.html?_r=1&t...

ENJOY!

CC

[Ronald S. Newbower]

It's ironic that we have all been focused on what role Google or Microsoft might play in setting defacto standards for EMR data exchange (independent of what the government might do), and out of left field comes Wal-Mart with real market clout at the front lines. This will be very interesting. eClinical was a minor player up to this point, but now is at the center of a powerhouse.

Ron

[Parvati Dev]

Very interesting! Wonder if they customize or whether one system suits all.

Parvati

[CC-Conrad Clyburn-MedForeSight]

Ronald & Parvati,

I think this is a "Big Deal". Walmart has many advantages in marketing to small physician packages - geographic breadth (they are everywhere), existing supply relationships, enormous capital reserves, and many small physician offices already use them for pharmacy services - so they may may be able to achieve further lock-in/synergies with the EHR and ePrescibing linkages. It will be interesting to see how this develops.

CC

[Thomas GIannulli MD, MS]

I am skeptical, having sold IT into the small physician office for over 15 years the package that is being offered is not a good fit, especially via a low tech/low skill channel like Wal mart. My guess is that Walmart will have to contract with regional VARS to get the kind of onsite service required to manage the system, and that is where quaitly control and VAR upselling will create real problems. In my opinion they need to offer a simple entry level system that takes no upfront installation and little but accessable remote training, and that covers the basics for aout $1000 per year. If they want ot offer a much more expensive and complex system as a second tier offering they can , though I see the market is moving towards very low cost per month, light weight (but stimulus plan quailfied) SAS products with an emphasis on usability /point of care / mobile device support.

[CC-Conrad Clyburn-MedForeSight]

Thomas,

Is a eClinicalWorks SaaS model capable of conforming to your entry level offering described above?

CC