Comments on: Wal-Mart + eClinicalWorks Electronic Medical Records | An Odd Couple with Good Intentions http://articles.icmcc.org/2009/03/31/wal-mart-eclinicalworks-electronic-medical-records-an-odd-couple-with-good-intentions/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=wal-mart-eclinicalworks-electronic-medical-records-an-odd-couple-with-good-intentions Your information source on Health IT. Sat, 21 Jan 2012 15:42:51 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Wesley Rishel http://articles.icmcc.org/2009/03/31/wal-mart-eclinicalworks-electronic-medical-records-an-odd-couple-with-good-intentions/comment-page-1/#comment-65309 Wesley Rishel Tue, 14 Apr 2009 04:03:39 +0000 http://www.icmcc.org/?p=7165#comment-65309 As I noted in my blog "To Halamka on Sam's Club eCW" I have a somewhat different take on this, although leads to a similar conclusion. Although Sam's Club is owned by Wal-Mart it is a different operation, closer to Costco. Sam's Club has a specific marketing channel reaching out to small businesses and through that channel is already supplying many of the needs of physicians practices. So, the model of initial customer approach is not of the kindly old retired guy at the door of Wal-Mart but rather the inside salesperson who has an ongoing client relationship with the office manager. As Halamka described it in his blog, "Electronic Health Records from Wal-mart" the handoff to eCW sales occurred shortly after first contact. In this model, eCW has achieved what all EMR vendors are trying to find, a sales channel to small doctor's offices. My concern is that the economics of the deal give short shrift to implementation support. This is described in detail in my blog entry As I noted in my blog “To Halamka on Sam’s Club eCW” I have a somewhat different take on this, although leads to a similar conclusion. Although Sam’s Club is owned by Wal-Mart it is a different operation, closer to Costco. Sam’s Club has a specific marketing channel reaching out to small businesses and through that channel is already supplying many of the needs of physicians practices. So, the model of initial customer approach is not of the kindly old retired guy at the door of Wal-Mart but rather the inside salesperson who has an ongoing client relationship with the office manager.

As Halamka described it in his blog, “Electronic Health Records from Wal-mart” the handoff to eCW sales occurred shortly after first contact. In this model, eCW has achieved what all EMR vendors are trying to find, a sales channel to small doctor’s offices.

My concern is that the economics of the deal give short shrift to implementation support. This is described in detail in my blog entry

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