Health-Care VARs Win With Electronic Medical Records Solutions

One key to success is identifying the critical decision maker, whether it's an individual doctor, a managing board of physicians or an office administrator. (Most offices with a dozen or fewer doctors don't have a dedicated IT person.)

Pisutha said cold-calling sales prospects isn't very effective with physicians. Most of Curas' EMR business is generated by word-of-mouth referrals, so building a reputation within the tight-knit physician community is key, he said.

Because so many of Agilit's clients rely on local hospitals to handle X-ray, CRT and other diagnostic imaging tests, the solution provider forged relationships with two area hospital networks. Being more plugged in to what's happening in hospitals has paid off by adding cachet to the company's consulting services—and to its marketing efforts.

Even the basics aren't easy. Higgins said hardware in many offices is often five or more years old and requires upgrading, adding to implementation costs, and training needs can be extensive. "We're still seeing people who have never used a PC," he said. "Training is probably the most important part of [implementing] an EMR system." No two EMR solution providers follow exactly the same business model.

Some install physician office automation and billing systems along with clinical EMR applications. Maritec, for example, has installed Medisoft patient accounting software (from Per-Se Technologies in Gilbert, Ariz., which was recently acquired by San Francisco-based McKesson Corp.) for some 500 physician clients in Ohio, Michigan and California. Ontolchik says that customer base is the solution provider's foot in the door for the Spring Medical Systems Inc. (Houston) EMR software it resells.

Because so many doctor practices have already implemented office automation and billing systems, that market is becoming saturated and solution providers that sell those applications should consider upgrading to electronic health record software, says Spring Medical CEO Jack Smyth. "These VARs need to protect their customer base and add EHR software like ours to their bag of tricks," he says.

Curas focuses exclusively on EMR, providing a range of services around software from eClinical Works such as system installation and support, project management, data migration, report writing and workflow consulting. If a client requires billing or office automation applications, Curas will bring in other solution providers.

Maritec does a lot of its work remotely and relies on local service providers to support clients' hardware needs. Curas provides client training while others leave that to the software vendor.

And opportunities for adding value abound. Curas has developed a mobile application that allows doctors to access patient records using a smartphone, for example. And Gipe foresees potential opportunities in linking VoIP to EMR for remote access to patient records.

Smyth predicts that for the next few years the 200-plus VARs that resell the vendor's SpringCharts EMR applications will have more business than they can handle. "VARs will have so much work they won't know what to do except go to the bank."