The company said its package deal of hardware, software, installation and service will make the technology more affordable for small physician offices. The New York Times
The story "Wal-Mart to market digital health records system" published March 11, 2009 at 12:01 AM is no longer available on CNET News.
Walmart wants to say that "low cost, high volume mentality is lacking in the health care industry". How many patients want "low cost high volume", i.e., you get 5 minutes with a "provider" (nurse, nurse practitioner, physicians assistant or maybe a doctor) and can only discuss or address one issue? Then, vendors want to charge us physicians a premium price for supplies. On top of that they want us to use low quality Dell computers, with Windows, which in itself adds to administrative overhead?
If Walmart wants to help doctors and the healthcare community, give us low cost medical supplies!
Whether Walmart is successful with this offering or now, the mere announcement of their entry, their pricing and their choice of a vendor will impact every conversation regarding EMR implementation for weeks to come. All of us in the field of implementing, operating or selling this important technology are now on notice. I can hear the conversations already between IT people and their CFO's challenging the budgets and schedules for implementation.
Kudo's, Walmart. I believe you've accelerated adoption of this important technology, even if only a little ... simply by stating that you believe it is possible to do more, quickly, and for less.
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If Walmart wants to help doctors and the healthcare community, give us low cost medical supplies!
Jonathan Richard, M.D.
Internal Medicine
Kudo's, Walmart. I believe you've accelerated adoption of this important technology, even if only a little ... simply by stating that you believe it is possible to do more, quickly, and for less.
First we had insurance companies practicing medicine. Now this. I wonder.