Cerner has signed a pact with CDW Healthcare to offer "one-stop" purchase of Cerner's ambulatory e-health record systems, along with hardware, technical assistance, and deployment services, to doctor offices.

The arrangement is the first time Cerner's suite of clinical and practice management software for doctor offices has been available from a national IT channel partner. However, the arrangement is not exclusive to either company. Cerner said in an email to InformationWeek that it "will continue to selectively explore other relationships that will help the company meet its clients' needs in the physician practice market."

Under the new pact, beginning Nov. 1, Cerner and CDW Healthcare will offer hardware, software, and technical services to deploy Cerner e-health record applications in small and mid-sized doctor offices.

Physician practices have the choice of having the Cerner software rolled out for a locally hosted implementation, or via an application service provider model.

It's estimated that fewer than 10% of doctor practices in the U.S. currently have e-medical record systems, however Cerner and other EMR vendors expects demand will grow significantly in light of the federal health IT stimulus rewards that kick in beginning 2011.

"While adoption of EHRs in the U.S. marketplace has been slow, many physicians will look to implement EHRs in the next 24 months due to the HITECH provision in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act," said Mike Valentine, executive VP of Cerner's worldwide client organization in a statement.

In addition to the new pact with CDW, Cerner has a dedicated sales force that provides physician practices with its electronic health record and practice management solutions for doctor offices. Cerner will continue to use its sales force along with the CDW resources to sell its ambulatory solutions.

Cerner chose to collaborate with CDW for its ambulator package based on Cerner's "long-standing relationships in healthcare" for other Cerner products, the software vendor said.

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