Wal-Mart Health Records

Wal-Mart is getting some headlines today for their entry into the Digital Health Records market. The headline reads: Wal-Mart Plans to Market Digital Health Records System

The company plans to team its Sam’s Club division with Dell for computers and eClinicalWorks, a fast-growing private company, for software. Wal-Mart says its package deal of hardware, software, installation, maintenance and training will make the technology more accessible and affordable, undercutting rival health information technology suppliers by as much as half.

After reading deeper into the article, there are three things that strike my interest. The first is that really they are teaming with a hardware vendor to provide low-cost equipment. This really is not that far away from their core business model, but worth mentioning. Secondly, it is the Sam’s Club division, and not the Stores division, that is taking the lead.

Lastly, and most importantly, they are providing a package of software and services. This means that really Wal-Mart is getting into the IT services game, which is a completely different business model. I’m curious to see how much of this work will actually be carried out by Dell or eClinicialWorks.