VAR builds new healthcare apps

John Buckle has spent a lot of time in Southern Ontario hospitals watching over his young daughter, who has a heart condition.

Those hours will lead him next month to launch a new pay-as-you-go service for hospital management and patient entertainment through a bedside PC monitor.

Buckle’s

company, eHealth Media Services Inc., will offer hospitals the ability to rent services such as bed and food management applications and patients the ability to pay for TV and movies.

It’s one of the latest moves by integrators into the health services industry.

Health services is one of the areas industry observers believe will be an emerging market this year. (See Feature, page 21.)

Roy Clark, general sales manager of Cycom Canada Inc. of Toronto, which has agreed to be one of eHMS’s resellers, agrees there’s potential in the market. Moving hospitals to electronic records could be a $100 million business for Cycom over the next two years, he said.

About 43 per cent of Cycom’s $10 million in annual revenues comes from sales to the health sector.

But, he cautioned, VARs have to be prepared for the industry’s long sales cycles as well as competition from major integrators including IBM Global Services.

To make inroads Clark believes it’s necessary to find niche markets and products, such as eHMS. But, he added, its vital the company get several pilot installations in hospitals to prove the concept.

As he passed time in hospital rooms Buckle was struck by the multiple TV screens and medical monitors that fill health care institutions. There had to be a way to create a convergence, he thought.

Investing some $300,000 of his own money he has assembled agreements with U.S. service providers for the medical applications and Canadian resellers such as Bell Micro and heath industry integrators such as Cycom Canada Inc. to put together the patient multimedia side of his package.

The idea is to supply an all-in-one PC at every bed from which patients could buy TV, movie and Internet service by swiping a credit card. The hospital could buy adminstrative services for around a dollar an appliciation. All services will run over an IP-based network.

So far Buckle has no customers although he said the company has been shortlisted for a hospital. Next month’s roll-out is predicated around the signing of a telecommunications provider and a major system integrator, he said. Negotiations with several companies are underway.

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Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

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Howard Solomon
Howard Solomon
Currently a freelance writer, I'm the former editor of ITWorldCanada.com and Computing Canada. An IT journalist since 1997, I've written for several of ITWC's sister publications including ITBusiness.ca and Computer Dealer News. Before that I was a staff reporter at the Calgary Herald and the Brampton (Ont.) Daily Times. I can be reached at hsolomon [@] soloreporter.com

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