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Despite potential obstacles, medical software maker eClinicalWorks LLC plans to do for e-health records what giant on-demand software provider Salesforce.com Inc. did for customer relationship management — with a little help from Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
Last week, Westborough-based eClinicalWorks divulged that it plans to roll out a low-cost, rapidly deployed, on-demand electronic health record software subscription offering this spring. For marketing muscle, it will partner with Wal-Mart, and the system will be bundled with hardware from Dell Inc. EClinicalWorks will provide training, software maintenance, services, and upgrades for about $25,000 in upfront costs to physicians, said eClinicalWorks CEO Girish Navani. That’s about half of a typical installation, he said.
“Time will tell how big or successful this will be,” said Navani. “We know it’s going to change the status quo in terms of how electronic medical record systems are sold in the marketplace. We want to tell the world the systems are very easy to use and can be deployed like Salesforce.com.”
One local competitor acknowledged the adroitness of the move. “I’m glad Girish is moving toward or recognizing the high-volume sales model,” said Sumit Nagpal, president and CEO of Cambridge-based Wellogic Inc., which offers e-records and health care applications. “All this adds more credibility for this technology and lowers the price points.”
“Anything that can accelerate e-health records in the health care industry is a great thing,” said Eric Brown, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc. in Cambridge. “People have been talking about implementing e-records for 25 years, but it’s hard.” A primary issue is that the entire health care system is so fragmented, said Brown. Most doctor networks include only eight physicians without a CFO or executive to handle the procurement. Wal-Mart is now opening a channel that didn’t exist before, direct to the health care providers. The packaged service will be sold exclusively online through Arkansas-based Wal-Mart’s Sam’s Club website. The company already sells office supplies to doctors and small practices, according to Sam’s Club.
While the deployment terms are flexible, eClinicalWorks will be promoting this as an on-demand package not requiring installed software, said Navani. The first-year cost of $25,000 will be primarily for the hardware, including PCs, printers, modem and scanners. The annual subsequent subscription price would run from about $4,400 to $6,000 a year thereafter, depending on the number of participants, he said. Physician practice management software is also included.
Other firms in this market include Watertown-based Athenahealth Inc., which provides doctor services on-demand and only gets paid as a percentage of the transactions it supports. Company spokesman John Hallock said Wal-Mart’s existing retail clinics use his firm’s system.
Another e-records competitor is Meditech Inc. of Westwood, which claims to automate “every part of a patient’s experience,” said company spokesman Paul Berthiaume.
One major question is whether eClinicalWorks can scale out to handle the sort of market Wal-Mart might generate, noted Brown. “It would be a big risk for eClinicalWorks, or any company, to stumble in this area by not having enough resources to support widespread implementation,” he said. However Navani downplayed that issue, saying the company already has nine data centers.
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