Most everyone knows that Austin is home to a number of major technological companies, such as Dell, but some are unaware of the city’s importance within the medical community. Recent stimulus dollars filtered into the city coupled with Dell’s partnership with an electronic medical record service provider, however, is shedding more light on this important aspect of the city’s economy.
According to a recent Austin Biz Journals article, two Central Texas health organizations were selected from among 45 different groups that are splitting an $83.9 million grant provided by the U.S. Department of Health Services. As part of the U.S. Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the funding is intended to target projects that focus on assisting health care centers adopt more advanced IT systems and electronic health records.
In all, $2 billion was set aside by the stimulus package for use with federally-qualified health centers, with Lone Star Circle of Care receiving $3 million and the Texas Association of Community Health Centers receiving $983,000. Both organizations will be using the funds to help purchase equipment as well as to train and hire staff in the use of new technology.
Dell Inc is also taking steps to participate in the electronic medical record movement. In fact, Austin Biz Journals reports that Dell is partnering with San Francisco-based electronic medical record company, Practice Fusion, in an effort to improve medical electronic communication.
Currently, Practice Fusion provides a free electronic medical record service to approximately 40,000 doctors and health care providers. Dell has made plans to offer the product to small and mid-sized primary care practices that are interesting in installing digital records. The new bundle will combine the Web-based electronic medical records developed by Practice Fusion with the suite of health record hardware that Dell has already developed. The bundle will include desktop and laptop computers as well as specialized scanners, broadband hardware and printers. According to Dell and Practice Fusion, the bundle will make it possible for health care providers to replace their paper systems with electronic scheduling and charting while also making it possible for them to fill prescriptions and lab orders electronically.
In related news, Dell also formed a partnership with the American Medical Association. Through this partnership, Dell will supply hardware support and hardware to health care practices using the new electronic medical records platform established by the AMA.
It is because of partnerships such as this one that Dell, which currently employs about 16,000 people in Central Texas, was recently named the number one health care information technology services provider in the world by Gartner Inc.