Rural Hospitals ... Untapped Opportunity
In 2012 and beyond, the best hospital opportunity for VARs
are rural and smaller hospitals.
In understanding why this marketing is so valuable, it's
important to understand what the market looks like.
• There are
over 3,200 hospitals in the United States with under 150 beds. The vast
majority of these hospitals reside outside of major metro areas.
As predominately smaller hospitals, these customers have not
made the same critical investments in Health IT as many of their larger
competitors. As you may also expect, with fewer legacy IT purchases these
hospital customers also come with less sophisticated internal IT departments.
Lastly, because they are small they are not called on by competing resellers or
technology vendors nearly as much as larger organizations.
However, it's critical to understand that although these
customers are smaller they have significant advantages in terms of federal
incentive payments.
• The
average small hospital will receive between $1-3m between Medicaid and Medicare
incentive payments. While that may not be a large figure to a 500 bed IDN, it's
an operational game changer for your average 75-bed hospitals.
Why does this add up to opportunity for our reseller
partners? First, the lack of internal IT resources combined with the
requirements for Health IT adoption means these hospitals know they must buy
but don't know how to do so effectively. This provides the reseller with a
perfect opportunity to build a trusted vendor relationship with the customer.
These hospitals are not shown the same attention as other
customers, showing the proper investment and helping them through this time of
challenge can garner the loyalty that leads to long-term customer engagements. With that in mind, let's look at a few primary opportunities
where a reseller can make an immediate impact?
• Electronic
health records: These customers are largely ignored by the top hospital EHR
vendors. However, every hospital MUST invest in a certified EHR system. If you
have an EHR to offer or can help navigate the waters of system selection and
implementation then you have an advantage. A cloud solution for EHR is even
more desirable due to the lack of data center build out and internal IT staff.
• Wireless
and mobility: Don't be surprised to walk into a 75-bed hospital and find
they're running DSL. Seriously. Wireless infrastructure, network security are
all areas that most of these hospitals have not even considered up until now.
• Security:
Aside from the wireless security example provided above there are a host of
security issues these hospitals must deal with but have gone largely ignored.
General privacy & security efforts, HIPAA compliance, and risk assessments
to meet Meaningful Use requirements are all in high demand.
• Managed
services: Without strong datacenter experience and internal IT resources, these
customers need managed service providers more than ever to support their
ongoing investments in HealthIT. The more services that can be delivered
through the cloud, the more of a burden the reseller can relieve for the
customer.
Every hospital has the need to share health information with
other trading partners (clinics, physician practices, labs, etc.). With the
recent announcement of Stage 2 for Meaningful Use this requirement to actively
demonstrate the ability to exchange data is front and center. By aligning with
the small/rural hospital, a reseller is also likely to gain leverage into other
customers with similar needs.
Be sure to check out our products for hospitals and services for local New Mexico practices here:
