HP announced today that it will create a new “healthcare affiliate program” pulling together offerings from independent software vendors with hardware from HP to help hospitals and healthcare organizations deliver better care and reduce costs, according to a company press release.
The announcement was made at the annual Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference and exhibition.
"Through our close collaboration with technology leaders in the Healthcare Alliance program, HP is providing an easy path for vendors to bring their most innovative healthcare solutions to market with the reliability of HP hardware," said Chris Mertens, vice president, Americas Healthcare Practice, Personal Systems Group, HP, in the press release.
"HP has great resources as far as services, delivery, cloud-based hosting, and infrastructure," Judy Hanover, research director at IDC Health Insights told InformationWeek. "Because of the pace of health IT adoption that's going on, every vendor I talk to right now is stretched in terms of implementation, resources, and people to go into hospitals and implement these applications. The Alliance HP has announced will help these ISVs get access to HP teams that are trained and have experience in the healthcare field. There are a lot of places where these relationships can go."
Other recently announced healthcare alliances include Buffalo, N.Y.-based Advantage Home Telehealth (ADHT), which will expand its mobile telehealth program by opening it to insurance companies, physician groups, hospitals, clinics, visiting nurse associations, and other health care providers.
HP will offer customers everything from medical carts to digital signage to clinical reference technology and combine these solutions with software from HP Healthcare Alliance program partners. At HIMSS, HP will display collaborative solutions including:
MedWeb, which will showcase its picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) viewer on the new HP Slate 2 and its virtual PACS solutions on HP mobile workstations.
ACR 2 Solutions, which helps organizations comply with information security compliance requirements through its automated enterprise risk-management software.
Status Solutions, which uses HP workstations to power its solution, which allows caregivers to remotely monitor their patients' vital information and alerts status.
Brainlab, which develops software-driven medical technology to support targeted, less-invasive treatment using the HP TouchSmart 9300 and 42-inch HP Digital Signage displays powered by HP Z210 workstations.
DigitalPersona, which allows healthcare IT managers to enforce and monitor security for an entire fleet of laptops and desktops from any location.
Deborah DiSesa Hirsch is an award-winning health and technology writer who has worked for newspapers, magazines and IBM in her 20-year career. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.
Edited by
Chris Freeburn
