IBM’s financing arm has announced partnerships with four healthcare IT vendors in an effort to push electronic health records to providers ahead of the government’s incentive program.

IBM Global Financing, the lending and leasing business segment of Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM, has announced financing agreements with Siemens Healthcare, Lavender & Wyatt Systems, Healthcare Management Systems and Soft Computer. The deals are designed to allow the four developers of electronic medical record systems to offer their provider clients low-rate private financing to adopt EMRs.

By pushing IT systems into hospitals and other providers now, IBM sees providers installing their systems and fully testing them ahead of the 2011 deadline for “meaningful use” of healthcare IT – which in turn makes the providers eligible for $21 billion in incentive funding under the HITECH provision of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA).

“Customers of electronic healthcare records solutions soon realize that while health IT technology is necessary, it’s also expensive,” said Richard Dicks, IBM Global Financing’s general manager for North America, in a press release issued Tuesday morning. “Costs have today become a non-technological barrier to health IT adoption. It’s a chicken and egg scenario facing medical providers. Many are waiting for government funding working its way through the system, but need the benefits of the technology today. Technology financing helps speed up implementation in a more cost effective manner.”

According to Dicks, both providers and EMR vendors are looking for help. Providers want to make sure whatever technology they install improves clinical outcomes and meets the federal government’s push for improved healthcare through IT. And vendors want to see the EMR market improve at a time when big-ticket items aren’t that popular.

“Providers realize they have to get on board and they’re not going to build it themselves,” he said. “There is a need for EMRs, but oftentimes it’s pushed off by other concerns. And now it’s no longer just an IT decision – the CFO has become critical in getting projects approved.”

“We’re willing to leverage our balance sheet to get this done,” he added. “We want to make sure that liquidity isn’t the one thing that stops hospitals.”

Tuesday’s announcement is significant because it covers a wide range of healthcare vendors:

    * Siemens Healthcare, based in Malvern, Pa., will work with IBM to push its line of EMR products and financial applications, including Soarian, the INVISION Clinicals Health Information System and computerized physician order entry (CPOE), and Siemens Health Solutions MedSeries4.
    * Lavender & Wyatt Systems, Inc., based in Little Rock, Ark., offers its Essentia solution to behavioral health providers and has signed several new clients over the past nine months through IBM-financed contracts.
    * Healthcare Management Systems, based in Nashville, offers a range of EMR and financial management solutions, including HMS Patient Care Documentation, to regional and community hospitals of 250 beds or less.
    * SCC Soft Computer, headquartered in Clearwater, Fla., focuses on laboratory and clinical information systems that target genetics, blood services, outreach, pharmacy and radiology information systems.

“Siemens Healthcare knows first-hand how important financing has become to helping hospitals, physician practices and specialty clinics bridge the financial gap and match costs to benefits while implementing new solutions under the ARRA’s HITECH provision, “ said Joe Gaetano, vice president of Siemens Healthcare’s ARRA program office. “It goes without saying that IBM Global Financing is a key part of the funding solutions we are proud to offer our customers.”

“While the advantages of implementing electronic health records have been recognized by top healthcare policy makers for some time now, ARRA funding has the potential to significantly accelerate the fulfillment of the vision for modernizing the national healthcare infrastructure,” added Chris Roth, vice president and controller for Siemens Healthcare.  “For many healthcare providers, the biggest obstacle is securing the capital investment needed to meet the aggressive schedules defined by ARRA’s HITECH provision, as well as the ability to defer payment until the providers are eligible to receive incentives monies.”

“Even at the niche level, financing is key,” said Brad Feller, president of Lavender and Wyatt. “Many of our clients have seen reduced funding from public and private sources, but still understand the need to start implementing solutions today. We feel that helping our clients connect the dots between, federal grants and loans, charity pricing and IBM Global Financing options stretches their dollars available for LWSI's Essentia solution.”

According to IBM officials, the new contracts give the company access to roughly 40 percent of the EMR vendor market seeking financial solutions for their customers. That market, as measured by a recent report in Health Industry Insights, is expected to top $4.2 billion by 2015.

“IBM Global Financing’s strategic financing relationships with market-leading EHR providers, combined with IBM’s healthcare services and software, is helping medical professionals use technology to uncover new ways to reduce errors, spot trends, improve patient care and gather new insights into how to keep people healthier," said Dan Pelino, general manager of IBM Global Healthcare & Life Sciences Industry. "IBM provides a complete set of healthcare solutions to solve the complex problems facing the industry today with consultataion and readiness assessment services, integration, analytics, storage, security, and now financing."

According to Dicks, providers and vendors have to ensure that the technology not only makes sense financially, but clinically. Hospitals can install the latest in new tools and gadgets, he said, and fail to improve the health of their patients.

“This has been a problem for healthcare and IT adoption for years,” he said. “Incentives are a way for the government to get the industry to focus” on healthcare reform, but in the end, “you still need effectiveness and efficiency.”