Posted on 06/29/2009 10:33:43 AM PDT by Lorianne
Wal-Mart Stores is striding into the market for electronic health records, seeking to bring the technology into the mainstream for physicians in small offices, where most of America’s doctors practice medicine.
Wal-Mart’s move comes as the Obama administration is trying to jump-start the adoption of digital medical records with $19 billion of incentives in the economic stimulus package.
The company plans to team its Sam’s Club division with Dell for computers and eClinicalWorks, a fast-growing private company, for software. Wal-Mart says its package deal of hardware, software, installation, maintenance and training will make the technology more accessible and affordable, undercutting rival health information technology suppliers by as much as half.
“We’re a high-volume, low-cost company,” said Marcus Osborne, senior director for health care business development at Wal-Mart. “And I would argue that mentality is sorely lacking in the health care industry.”
The Sam’s Club offering, to be made available this spring, will be under $25,000 for the first physician in a practice, and about $10,000 for each additional doctor. After the installation and training, continuing annual costs for maintenance and support will be $4,000 to $6,500 a year, the company estimates.
Wal-Mart says it had explored the opportunity in health information technology long before the presidential election. About 200,000 health care providers, mostly doctors, are among Sam Club’s 47 million members. And the company’s research showed the technology was becoming less costly and interest was rising among small physician practices, according to Todd Matherly, vice president for health and wellness at Sam’s Club.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
your healthcare, being managed by Federal bureaucrats, using tools that they purchased from WalMart....THINK about it, America!!
Seems to me that one could simply use any file system and put records in a website.
It still seems more expensive than it needs to be.
How about everyone gets a memory card with all their records on it and takes it with them when they travel. Cheap and efficient and private to a degree.
But what do I know.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.