Chris Paton posted an interesting bit of news about Google joining forces with PwC, DSS, Inc, Medsphere, Medicasoft, and General Dynamics Information Technology. Here’s an excerpt from what Chris posted:
PwC and Google recently announced a joint business relationship where the two organizations will team together to help companies accelerate their journey to and build trust in the cloud. The combined advantage of PwC and Google teaming together on the DORHS proposal – along with commercial EHR vendors DSS, Inc. and Medsphere Systems Corporation, MedicaSoft, and systems integrator General Dynamics Information Technology — offers the DoD a distinctive, reliable and secure open source EHR solution with innovative, user-friendly operations. In addition, DORHS’ flexibility will help prevent the federal government from being locked into a single technology, avoiding “vendor lock” and “innovation lag” which can occur with proprietary EHR and technology companies.
With $11+ billion at stake in the DoD EHR project, it’s not surprising that companies are trying everything they can to make their bid the most attractive out there. Although, I’m not sure how much Google really brings to the table as far as technical expertise with Vista. Seems more like a PR move than a decision to bring on specific expertise.
I’m also interested to see if open source EHR vendors based on Vista really have much of a chance against Epic, Cerner and Allscripts (and their government contractor partners). I try not to predict government decisions, but it would be quite the coup for a Vista based EHR bid to win.
A coalition like this might well be the way, under the right circumstances, to overcome the behemoth(s) out there that tend to get first dibs on big EHR projects. It could be a huge boost to competition in the large EHR market as well.
Ron