IBM: Rising Health-Care Tide For EMRs Will Lift VAR Boats

IBM on Thursday named three new health-care partnerships geared toward the continued development of electronic medical records (EMR) and increasing IBM's stake in developing health-care solutions to benefit its entire ecosystem -- including channel and solution provider opportunities.

Big Blue also said it had launched a new suite of health-care information and analytics technologies in China, part of its continuing digital health efforts in the region.

IBM will add the three partnerships to the more than 1,000 hospitals and other care organizations it works with around the world to continue its EMR proliferation.

According to IBM, Memorial Hermann Hospital System, based in Houston, is the largest nonprofit health-care organization in Texas, and in 20 months saw more than $1.2 million in operational cost savings thanks to adoption of software and services from IBM and solution provider CGI Group (2008 VARBusiness 500 rank No. 25), whose Sovera offering is powered by IBM FileNet.

Capella Healthcare, based in Tennessee, builds health-care systems for local communities, and with IBM and ISV BlueWare's Wellness Connection has also seen significant cost savings related to EMR and patient data digitization.

The third partner, Trillium Health Centre, is one of Canada's largest community hospitals and relies on IBM business intelligence (through Cognos) to track patient information.

"Our view is that the stimulus package is a catalyst for fueling a significant amount of momentum," said Tom Inman, vice president, IOD Acceleration Information Management of IBM's Software Group, in an interview. "There are islands of hospitals that can experience the benefits of automation through digitizing [their] assets and optimizing the flow of work -- improving the performance of the various functions within the hospital. Then, it's connecting the dots within those various technology islands. Digitizing the records is one thing but then dashboards and performance management insight is another."

Electronic medical records are a major piece -- $19 billion in grants and incentives -- of The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the federal stimulus package. VAR opportunities abound for EMR and health-care IT integration, and Inman sought to assure solution providers they could jump on IBM's EMR wagon to reap the benefits.

"A big part of our strategy is fueling the ecosystem of either application-oriented solution providers that sit on top of our infrastructure, or custom integrators," Inman said. "For the smaller hospitals, you'll find more regional VARs, and the bigger ones, you'll find the BearingPoints and the Accentures. But in each of those areas, there's the EMR portion from a content-management perspective, there are integration opportunities, business intelligence and performance management through Cognos, and other targeted areas inside the network."

Inman insisted IBM's solution provider channel will be "critical" to driving the EMR piece of its health-care agenda.

"Given our size, one can think we can have a real impact on the market," he said. "The network of software partners and integrators and consultants is critical here. I think the opportunity to transform this industry is so ripe, and IBM and its entire ecosystem are going to benefit from it."

IBM on Thursday also said it had launched new health-care information sharing and analytics technologies at Guang Dong Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Guangzhou, China. The suite, known as CHAS (Clinical and Health Records Analytics and Sharing), enables EMR exchange for both traditional Chinese medicine and modern Western medicine in one standardized system.

"They don't have the challenge of legacy infrastructures," Inman said of digital health initiatives in China. "And I think being able to marry the different cultures, despite some of the logical barriers, means that the opportunity to invest in health care over there is exploding -- which means there is opportunity there for solution providers, too."