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Electronic Health Records (EHR) are considered one of the most fertile areas of growth for IT solution providers. Congress has allocated about $20 billion from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) for Health IT (HIT) with a large portion of that dedicated to EHR deployment. According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, funding to help doctors and hospitals implement EHR solutions could begin to flow through the Medicare program in May 2011.

“It’s one of the last green-field opportunities in IT,” says gloStream’s Vice President of Business Development and Strategy Sabrina Dobbins. “There are more than 230,000 practices, 95 percent of which are small offices. And, only 5 to 10 percent of those have adopted EHR solutions.”

One of the most talked about and under-penetrated markets is ambulatory practices. Smaller hospitals also are a possible sweet spot for VARs. Even those who don’t benefit from stimulus funds are looking to implement EHR, including chiropractors and plastic surgeons who want to gain the operational efficiency of moving to an electronic system.

“Physicians understand that their world is changing,” says Vice President of Indirect Distribution at Sage Brian Muck. “They are going to need someone to help them meet these government initiatives, as well as to make their practices run more smoothly.” But some healthcare providers are scratching their heads wondering how to relieve their pain points.r

According to the physician-only discussion board, Medscape Physician Connect (MPC), many healthcare providers see a Webbased collection of medical records, including hospitalization, lab reports, x-rays and office notes, as a way to increase efficiencies in their practices. But, at this early stage, some doctors—specifically primary-care physicians—are wary of making this change, citing a loss in productivity during the transition phase that would have a negative impact on patient care. They’re also concerned about maintenance requirements due to template-based systems.

“When the movement to get doctors away from paper charts started, it originally tackled the practice-management side of the office,” explains Greenway’s Media Relations Specialist, Greg Fulton. “Greenway’s PrimeSuite securely centralizes clinical and PM functions like patient records, clinical alerts, billing, reporting, registration and other administrative tasks of a medical practice in a single database.”

He also addresses the template-based concerns of many physicians. “Greenway offers custom templates for specialized practices, but gives physicians the ability to customize their own templates. This allows primary care physicians to create their own templates that conform to their workflow.”

The gloStream Microsoft Office-based EHR and Practice Management (PM) applications also are designed for efficient deployment and ease of use by small- and medium-sized doctors’ practices. “The thing that scares healthcare providers most is that EHR will make them do things differently than they did before,” says Dobbins. “They struggle with the idea that it will change the way they interact with the patient and document their records. gloEMR and gloPM have alleviated all of that concern by embedding Microsoft Word into the software, allowing the doctor to do their job as they always have.”

Muck agrees that one of the biggest objections against adopting an EHR solution is fear of lost productivity. “We minimize lost productivity by offering the ability to document encounters in a number of different ways—using the keyboard, the mouse, a stylus or voice—either with transcription or speech recognition.” Sage’s Intergy EHR solution is designed for speed with the ability to pull forward a previous note and, through the use of “favorites,” to document common exams, as well as the ability to pull forward a previous note.

Another pain point for physicians is post-sales support. As one doctor on the forum put it, “A good sales pitch with nice graphics and testimonials sell it, then the clinical staff is left to suffer.”

“Doctors become very dependent on these systems, making them customers for life for a VAR,” says Dobbins. That’s why many EHR vendors provide training resources to ensure resellers are prepared to sell, install and support medical practice software, as well as to help their customers become comfortable with the new software.

Counseling new clients to reduce their patient schedule slightly for the first week or two helps them adjust to the learning curve on a new system. Muck suggests that physicians document a few exams per day using the EHR system, and build up that number as they become more accustomed to the system. “As with any new software, once the user becomes familiar with the workflow, they pick up speed,” he says. “We find that physicians who are motivated to begin using an EHR are up and running and seeing the standard number of patients per day in a matter of a week or two.”

EHR—Just Part Of The Total Solution

Even with an EHR system in place, doctors still have to figure out what to do with all the paper documents they have. “About 40 percent of the documents in the physician’s office are not addressed,” says Kodak’s Business Development Director, Worldwide Healthcare Solutions Jody Miller.

“From an infrastructure perspective, most physicians’ offices will require a technology refresh to replace close to 70 percent of their existing equipment and software,” says MedCo Data’s COO Rob Cash. “It’s not an elected option, but a requirement to meet the technical specifications of most EHR software providers.”

MedCo Data and Kodak have teamed up to provide physicians and their staffs with a solution they can use to maintain their current workflow. Using a Kodak scanner and Capture Pro Software, existing staff can quickly and easily scan documents into an EHR-friendly format, and automatically and securely transfer the file into the HIPAA-compliant MedCo Data Vault.

Ben Perry, Brother’s national sales manager of Healthcare believes that one of the best solutions for these practices is an all-in-one solution. “Most physicians’ practices are supporting three or four different machines on their desktop landscape,” he says. “Print consolidation narrows the landscape to one device, which not only streamlines their workflow, but can show them savings from a hardware perspective.”

UC’s plethora of products and technologies, however, creates exciting opportunities for VARs to make money from consultation, support and, of course, integration services, which are at the heart of all UC deployments.

The drive to an electronic record-keeping system also creates opportunities for resellers to meet the ergonomic needs of those inputting the information. “Nurses touch the patient records more than any healthcare worker,” says Steve Reinecke, Ergotron’s senior global director for the Education and Healthcare Industry. “Adjustable workstations, carts and wallmounted computers are enhancing the nurses’ workflow while providing easier access to information.”

But Kodak’s Miller adds that one of the biggest mistakes resellers make is selling only one portion of a solution. “Healthcare clients have specific pain points and they want a one-stop shop where they can get everything they need from consultation to products to services.”

Reinecke adds that even if some physicians are already compliant with their meaningful use of EHR systems, don’t ignore them. “Physicians are going to be investing in new technologies or upgrading their systems to deal with space constraints and mobility issues,” says Reinecke. “You don’t have to go into a hospital and talk just about medical records.”

Tech Data has one of the channel’s strongest HIT solutions portfolios. “We have the right vendor partners and the right solutions to help our resellers capitalize on the rising demand for HIT,” says Tech Data’s Vice President of Services Barb Miller. “Tech Data’s Healthcare Specialized Business Unit (SBU) helps our customers take advantage of this opportunity with training and technical support services so they can build successful, profitable practices that will achieve EHR meaningful use incentives and, most importantly, improve patient outcomes.”

The TechMed team also recently unveiled the Healthcare IT Pavilion enabling resellers to learn what it takes to build a profitable healthcare IT practice by engaging industry experts and seeing these solutions in action.

To find out how you can reap the benefits, visit www.techdata.com/techmed.