PC Connection Launches Health-Care Initiative

PC Connection today announced an initiative that targets the health-care market with solutions that enable health information exchange and forward the government's commitment to a national health network. Rockville, Md.-based subsidiary GovConnection will be charged with driving the solutions into the public-sector markets.

The HealthConnection initiative, which will be marketed to health-care providers and payer organizations, incorporates mobility, data capture, document management and regulation compliance within an IT infrastructure that includes networks, servers and storage. Company subsidiaries PC Connection Sales and MoreDirect will handles sales into the SMB and enterprise markets, respectively, while GovConnection will handle the federal, state and local government segment,s as well as education. That includes military hospitals, government-funded state and local-health care institutions, and teaching hospitals located at universities.

"There's tremendous opportunity to drive health-care solutions into government, which is, of course, where GovConnection already has a strong presence," says Peter Cannone, senior vice president at PC Connection. GovConnection already touts a contract with the National Institute of Health (NIH) and has its eye on the Department of Veteran Affairs' Procurements of Computer Hardware and Software contract, known as Peaches 3, which will incorporate health-care automation. It's expected to be awarded later this year.

"This initiative just gives us more to leverage as we bid on contracts. Health care is not new to our business, but now we can offer additional vertical focus with the right solutions for the changing market," Cannone adds.

So far, HealthConnection premier partners include Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Lenovo, Palm, Kingston Technology, Eastman Kodak, Konica Minolta, Lexmark International, McAfee, AmPC, and Planar Systems. Down the road, GovConnection will announce partnerships with software providers that can provide vertical applications on top of the hardware, according to the customer requirements.