McKesson and Hewlett-Packard hope to spur adoption of electronic health records in doctor's offices by offering hardware-software bundles, they announced on Tuesday.

The two companies have developed an online portal, run by Tech Data, one of HP's distributors, where resellers can go and pull packages to sell to doctors, offering HP scanners, printers, tablets and desktops pre-configured with McKesson electronic health record technology, such as Practice Partner, Lytec MD and Medisoft Clinical.

The primary customers are expected to be small to medium-sized practices.
"What we really want is a total solution...[where] physicians can feel great, safe, secure and robust and that works long-term," Chris Mertens, vice president of the health care division of HP's Personal Systems Group, tells DOTmed News.

The portal should launch in the next few months after engineers work out the kinks, Mertens says. But some bundles are expected to be available in the next few weeks.

SIMPLIFY, SIMPLIFY

As doctors in private practice work to automate their offices before the January 2011 deadline to qualify for ARRA stimulus money, McKesson and HP sought a "one-stop shopping" approach to make things easy on the physicians.

"We reached out to HP really in response to [the need for] customers to have a fast optimized way to get hardware combined with our software applications," David Henriksen, senior vice president and general manager of McKesson's physician practice division, tells DOTmed News. "As the market is ramping up on electronic health record adoption, we did everything to speed up and simplify the process."

By prepackaging the hardware and software, the two companies are on top of a growing trend in technology of making things as easy as possible on the buyer. "I think it points to the desire of customers, regardless of size, for simplicity," Mertens says. "We're trying to bring simplicity, and we're trying to do that cooperatively, and demonstrating the partnership of two great brands is what the market needs."

MEANINGFUL USE

The two companies are also trying to ensure that doctors who pick up the package now aren't left behind once the Department of Health and Human Services locks down the "meaningful use" criterion. Right now, the HHS is allowing comments before issuing a final rule on March 15 that will determine what electronic health record systems would make a doctor's practice eligible for the stimulus money.

"If today's commercial releases need more development in light of the final rule of meaningful use criterion, customers could do a simple upgrade...in order to get to meaningful use," Henriksen says.

Ensuring the products hit the meaningful use criterion is important for the companies because of their expected customer base. "The smaller office can't afford the time or the money to make a mistake on what [qualifies as] meaningful use," Henriksen adds.

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