Konica Minolta is stepping in a new direction. When the imaging vendor acquired Viztek in October 2015, it sought to provide enhanced value through its healthcare IT solutions centered on digital radiography, integrated X-ray devices, point-of-care ultrasound, integrated PACS, radiology information systems and electronic health records.

“We’re entering the EHR space so we want to be able to go to a group of clinics, multispecialty groups, and say, ‘Hey, we can provide RIS and PACS and do practice management and charting and billing for OB-GYN, orthopedics and others in your groups,’” said Steve Deaton, vice president of healthcare IT sales, Konica Minolta Medical Imaging.

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At HIMSS16, Viztek executives will join Konica Minolta executives to showcase the Konica Minolta Exa Healthcare IT enterprise imaging platform.

Calling the combined offering “a full provider-based EHR,” Deaton explained that Exa is different from competitors electronic health records systems in that it includes not only RIS and PACS in an enterprise imaging platform but also those EHR and practice management capabilities.”

Exa uses a standards-based interface to import data from existing EHRs to give radiologists a more complete picture of a patient than systems that don’t integrate with an EHR, Deaton said.

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Konica Minolta said that its experience replacing imaging and radiology information systems at provider organizations will help it in its quest to expand farther into the EHR space.

“What we’ve learned from the radiology space is how to become experienced in the replacement market,” Deaton said. “In radiology, every time we replace a system we are interacting with radiologists who can be some of the hardest users because they are looking at the exact same things all day long. If we can make them happy, we can make other clinicians happy.”

For calendar year 2016, Deaton said, the company will target imaging providers, such as orthopedics, urgent care, cardiology, and so on. Then in 2017 it hopes to carry the platform outside of that, to non-imaging practices.

Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT

This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the HIMSS16 conference. Follow our live blog for real-time updates, and visit Destination HIMSS16 for a full rundown of our reporting from the show. For a selection of some of the best social media posts of the show, visit our Trending at #HIMSS16 hub.