An expected 30 million Americans will join Medicaid and private insurance plans as a result of health-care reform signed into law by President Obama on Mar. 23. When they do, they will have to register through "health information exchanges" that the federal government requires states to set up by 2014.
Dell, the world's third-largest computer maker, has assembled a team of consultants to help U.S. states meet those mandates. On June 9, the Round Rock [Tex.) company said it has formed a state health services group to provide consulting to states as they work to comply with the legislation.
"There is not a lot of time to get these exchanges built," says Melissa Boudreault, director of state health services at Dell, who is heading the initiative. "You're going from zero to 100 in a relatively short amount of time."
The company is angling for a slice of the $386 million awarded by the government to help 40 states build the exchanges, which will include Web sites, computer systems, and telephone support for citizens enrolling in insurance plans. In all, the government has set aside almost $1 billion for advancing the use of information technology in health care, including use of electronic medical records and worker training.
Joshua Greenbaum, principal of research firm Enterprise Applications Consulting, based in Berkeley, Calif., says there's "an enormous opportunity" to connect citizens to government services by using customer management software and business applications to power agencies' Web sites. "The software for government relating to its constituents is some of the most abysmal stuff you've ever seen," he says.
Dell's effort is the fruit of its $3.6 billion acquisition of Perot Systems in November 2009, a transaction designed to help it expand in technology services and better compete with Hewlett-Packard and IBM. Perot's strengths include health care...
Posted: 2010-06-14 08:40:18
