Is there some ’smoke, string and mirrors’ type play going on??

I am reasonably comfy with technical architecture like SOA and Virtualization and think that for a web-based EHR/EMR, the costs should be for maintaining the access/subscriptions for updated applications, virus prevention and regular backups -this should be only $2K or so, per my experience.

Any thoughts?

Open to correction, as always.

Most physicians will look at this deal with purely a customer’s perspective, and that’s to be expected. What do you see when you step back and look at the big picture though?

You see a global marketing giant with an enormous physician customer base, a global leader in IT products and remote IT support, and a credible EMR/PM vendor with a working product and a nimble and cutting edge software company (unlike, say a GE). The marking component (Wal-Mart) is also rolling out it’s own emergency clinics in all of it’s locations that will be using this product and technology, and by the way, they also already have a major piece of the prescription pie.

When I look at this at the macro level, (forgetting even for a moment the so called “stimulus money, which will be like throwing gasoline on a fire) I see a potential health care juggernaut that will quickly have the potential to influence national policy at the de-facto – if not at the legislative level.

People (individual physicians) don’t have to like it. Frankly, it doesn’t even have to be a great product offering. (Everyone forgets how bad Microsoft was when it started out, and how they actually became the O/S and Application standard they are today.) All it has to do is work. And it will work. Coupled with an HIE solution, this could make Eclinicalworks an unofficial EMR standard. And Wal-Mart could create the infrastructure to become the largest Health Care Network in they country. This alliance could be a uniquely disruptive event in the marketplace with far reaching consequences for all industry stakeholders, including patients, physicians, payors, and vendors and the government.