Summary
Wal-Mart is one of the top consumer retailers in the country. They have already entered the world of competitive, low cost health care delivery with their $4.00 generic prescriptions and their Nurse Practitioner run clinics--so becoming a warehouse for state-of-the-art electronic medical records (EMR's) is a natural progression. I see this as a great business move for Wal-Mart as they will combine their buying power with Dell's technology expertise, creating an affordable EMR system to revolutionize American medicine.
Analysis
Electronic medical records (EMR's) are something that have been trying to break into mainstream medicine in America for the past several years. The focus on quality medical care and the elimination of medical errors has pushed most health care systems and many physician offices to using information technology more and more. Computerized physician order entry (CPOE) is becoming common place in many hospitals, as are computerized physician progress notes and nursing notes. All of this has helped to decrease medical errors by eliminating problems with illegible hand writing and unapproved abbreviations, and by placing checks and balances on medication orders to assure accurate drug dispensing and patient safety. The next step in this slowly evolving process is the electronic medical record (EMR). This requires all patient transactions to be done with computers, thus eliminating all hand written notes, orders and documentation. This would allow easy interfacing between doctor's offices and hospitals, as well as other health care delivery systems, and would potentially eliminate medical errors. Although it sounds great in theory, there is much reluctance in the medical community as it is a very costly venture, and will significantly increase practice overhead, putting a greater strain on the American health care system. This coupled with decreasing insurance reimbursements and increasing costs across the board, makes EMR's very unpopular with many of today's physicians--especially solo private practitioners or small group practices. In addition, the systems that have entered the market place have been extremely costly and have been filled with glitches and interfacing problems. With the emergence of Wal-Mart in this arena, the possibility exists for an affordable, widespread EMR system in America. Wal-Mart has already entered the world of low cost health care with their $4.00 generic prescriptions and their affordable medical clinics staffed by Nurse Practitioners, so this is not something that is out of their realm. Using their buying power, and the I.T. expertise of Dell, they just may come up with an affordable, wide spread EMR system that everyone can live with. I think this is a great business move on their end, since the profit margins for EMR's thus far have been extremely high and the market place is wide open. And, if President Obama helps to fund the project, it should take off that much sooner. This may ultimately revolutionize modern medicine in America.
Alan Zaccaria, MD, FACS
