Cleveland Clinic To Provide EMR Consultation
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
Cleveland Clinic partners with Dell to offer other health systems consulting, installation, configuration, and hosting services
The Cleveland Clinic, according to MedCity News, is teaming up with Dell to offer Epic EMR consulting, installation, configuration, and hosting services to other health systems and practices across the country. The collaboration between the Cleveland Clinic and Dell's Healthcare and Life Sciences unit was announced at the HIMSS14 convention in Orlando.
Together the pair will work with physician practices and health systems to plan, implement, and customize the Epic EMR system to meet their needs. Customers can install the system on their own servers or use Dell’s cloud-based services to host their data, the duo said in an announcement.
Modern Healthcare reports, under the partnership, Epic would be paid a licensing fee but providers and health systems would work through Dell and the Cleveland Clinic.
The Cleveland Clinic’s MyPractice Healthcare Solutions business has been extending EHRs to more than 400 providers including physicians, nurse practitioners, and midwives within a 50-mile radius of Cleveland. Dr. C. Martin Harris, CIO of the Cleveland Clinic, said of their EHR services, “We've been doing it for privately practicing physicians for almost 3½ years.” Data from these clinician customers has been warehoused at the Cleveland Clinic, and the practices have been billed monthly for the service. About 18 months ago, the health system also extended its EHR to an unnamed hospital about 70 miles away.
It’s not the first time that the clinic has turned its own expertise into consulting services. The clinic also generates revenue through the Healthcare Innovation Alliance, a seven-member consortium that leverages its commercialization expertise to help other institutions turn their employees’ medical inventions into commercial products. But the market for first-time electronic health record system buyers is narrowing. Last year, nearly 80 percent of office-based physicians had some kind of electronic health record system installed according to CDC.
As Stage 2 meaningful use looms, vendors are facing challenges upgrading their products and obtaining certification, and some market surveys have suggested some providers are switching vendors. The clinic’s CIO, Dr. Martin Harris, told Modern Healthcare that Stage 2 was a “much steeper climb” that would have facilities thinking about their operations. “It presents the opportunity to have a service to help them get there.”
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