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The personal computer giant Dell enters in to EMR market to bridge the healthcare’s digital divide

Dell, the personal computer maker, has launched an electronic medical record for hospital-affiliated physician practices. The Dell executives says that the system will help in bridging healthcare's digital divide and is introduced with an objective of accelerating the sharing and meaningful use of digital patient information among hospitals and physician practices. Tufts Medical Center in Boston and the Memorial Hermann Health Care system in Houston are the early adopters for the Dell EMR.

The Dell EMR solution is said to be sponsored by hospitals for their affiliated physicians and designed to make it affordable and practical for physician practices for transition from paper to electronic records. It will also connect physicians and their sponsoring hospitals so that they can utilize the power of electronic patient information to improve and coordinate patient care, help reduce costs and streamline administration across their local healthcare system.

According to some of the recent industry research reports, less than 10 percent of U.S. physicians (most of them of them affiliated with a local hospital) have a fully-functional electronic records system that provides real-time access to patient histories and streamlines practice management with electronic patient registration, scheduling and billing.

" The U.S. healthcare system is suffering from a digital divide that we can no longer afford," said Jamie Coffin, MD, vice president of Dell's healthcare and life sciences division. "With our hospital partners we are knocking down EMR's barriers to accelerate its adoption, and in doing so we'll create the communities of practices and information-sharing infrastructure necessary to achieve reform priorities today and personalized medicine in the future."

The Dell executives says that the new EMR solution helps to reduce upfront expenses and help maximize cash flow, with financing that minimizes up-front and out-of-pocket expenses until ARRA reimbursement and affordable monthly lease payments that maximize cash flow during reimbursement periods. The solution connects the healthcare community, via a secure health information exchange hosted by the hospital or a Dell partner, so that affiliated physicians and hospitals can exchange electronic patient information to coordinate care and streamline administration.

The complexity also can be eliminated with a single solution that simplifies EMR adoption and is tailored to the needs of each practice. The solution includes hosted EMR and practice management software, office technology and a complete services portfolio, including practice and site assessments to determine practice readiness and workflow requirements, solution installation, physician and staff training and 24/7 software and hardware support via Dell's ProSupport EMR Helpdesk.

Source: Dell