Health care has long had a justified reputation as a great play for VARs in a down economy: if not quite recession-proof, it's about as recession-resistant as any vertical market out there. It's also something VARs approach with some trepidation; with all the regulatory tangles, security risks and complexities of legacy systems, a health-care project can be an unprepared integrator's worst nightmare.
But here's what's true in 2009: VARs who engage health care now, however, are approaching it during unprecedented times, what with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) adding billions to the economy toward the adoption of electronic medical records (EMRs) and Health Information Exchanges (HIEs), as well as infrastructure upgrades and IT modernization.
EMR itself, however, is just the tip of the iceberg, and where VARs may be needed most isn't in the actual EMR software so much as the back-end infrastructure -- data center, networking, security, virtualization -- needed to support it, and the various pieces -- mobility, services, specialty devices -- of a full-scale health-care solution. Have a look at what your peers are up to.
