Dell Forges E-Health Partnership With AMADell Forges E-Health Partnership With AMA

Dell and the American Medical Association have launched a new partnership to help independent doctor practices adopt e-medical records and other heath IT systems.

Under the new "one-stop" shopping strategy, AMA and Dell will together offer "an end-to-end" suite of EMR and practice management applications and services.

Initially, Dell will provide consulting and support services to help AMA members adopt e-prescribing and computerized physician order entry, or CPOE. Other offerings likely will evolve as part of the program, including software from other vendors, such as Allscripts, said Jamie Coffin, Dell VP of health and life sciences.

The first offerings -- e-prescribing and CPOE -- address the first wave of the federal government's meaningful use criteria that the healthcare industry will be expected to meet starting in 2011.

The government's proposal on requirements for meaningful use is being reviewed by health IT professionals.

Services from Dell will include workflow analysis and support services to help doctors get going on EMR and other health IT deployments, and represent Dell's intensifying focus on IT services and products for the healthcare sector. Dell's health IT services strategy in particular was bolstered last year with Dell's $3.9 billion acquisition of Perot Systems.

For Further Reading:
Guerra On Healthcare: EMR Standards Committee Struggles
Guerra On Healthcare: Meaningful Use Proposal Has Some Seeing Red
Q&A: Health IT Czar Rethinks National Data Exchange
Health IT Metrics Taking Shape
Q&A: Obama's Health IT Czar On Strategy, Incentives

Anthony Guerra is the founder and editor of healthsystemCIO.com, a site dedicated to serving the strategic information needs of healthcare CIOs. He can be reached at [email protected].