October 19th, 2009
Microsoft wins seat at health IT table
Microsoft got a seat at the health IT table last week as Caritas Christi, a Catholic-based hospital chain in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, decided to standardize on Amalga software.
The deal means that hospital networks in the northeast will have to deal with Microsoft’s health IT offering in their technical planning. The deal includes Microsoft’s HealthVault Personal Health Record.
Among Caritas’ competitors are Beth Israel Deaconess, whose innovative health It set-up run by GeekDoctor John Halamka has virtualized its health records using VMWare, and Partners Healthcare, which announced back in 2007 it would begin requiring using of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) by its physicians.
The market Amalga is entering, in other words, is a hothouse of EHR adoption, and integrating with its neighbors should give Microsoft the knowledge it needs to interoperate with all types of hospital IT systems.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist since 1978, and has covered technology since 1982. He launched the Interactive Age Daily, the first daily coverage of the Internet to launch with a magazine, in September 1994. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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