Are You Missing The Healthcare IT Opportunity?

By Gennifer Biggs, security, storage, and managed services editor

When the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was passed in February 2009, it meant nearly $17 billion was earmarked for incentive payments geared at fueling adoption of technology by medical providers and hospitals — namely, EHR (electronic health records) or EMR (electronic medical records). What that means is the federal government is helping push the medical vertical toward you, the trusted technology provider. This isn't an opportunity you want to watch pass you by; the EHR and healthcare IT market it estimated at $10 billion, with nearly 900,000 practicing physicians looking for IT solutions. The added benefit of this vertical market opportunity is the tangential sales surrounding EHR, such as tablet computers, network and physical security systems, VoIP, hardware refreshes, and more.

If you are already aware of the potential growth opportunity presented by healthcare IT but aren't sure you have the expertise needed to deliver those solutions, take heart. At least one distributor, Ingram Micro, has been working to identify opportunities for healthcare IT along with its partner, NextGen, an EHR vendor. The partners are also training MSPs on how to integrate and deliver healthcare IT solutions. If you aren't willing or able to tackle that option, you can also find IT business partners through the Ingram Micro network who will work with you to deliver healthcare IT solutions to your customers. Want to learn more? Check out www.ingrammicro.com/healthcare.