Avaya, Dell, VMware Focus on Healthcare Tech at HIMSS12

It’s that time of year again for the Healthcare Information and Management Systems (HIMSS) annual conference. Vendors around the world are focusing on healthcare-friendly technology, and you know our resident blogger always has his eye on the vertical markets. VARs looking to attack the ever-growing healthcare vertical should read on to find out what Avaya, Dell and VMWare are bringing to the examination table …

Here’s a snippet of the healthcare landscape at HIMSS12, by yours truly, The VAR Guy:

• Avaya: Avaya Mobile Activity Assistant and Avaya Flare Communicator for iPad will be showcased at HIMSS. Avaya Mobile Activity Assistant promises to bring streamlined “closed-loop HIPAA-compliant communication” for iPad and iPhone, with cross-platform compatibility coming soon. The mobile app will offer up presence capabilities in addition to voice calls and text messages. Preconfigured texts also are available for common communication needs, and all textual communication will be logged. As an added bonus, “text messages … can be converted into voice calls,” and preconfigured text messages are available to help streamline communication processes, according to the company. Avaya’s Flare communicator for iPad isn’t new, but the healthcare spin is — Avaya says the technology can share information such as “X-rays and lab results.”
• Dell: Dell plans on unveiling its Unified Clinical Archiving (UCA) solutions and Mobile Clinical Computing (MCC) platforms at HIMSS12. Dell’s UCA solution comes from its InSite One acquisition in December 2010 and an alliance formed with Siemens to build a cloud data archiving solution, which works in conjunction with Siemens Healthcare Cloud Computing Center. Dell’s MCC solution seeks to take consumer technology and meld it with the privacy concerns of the healthcare environment, acting as a conduit to virtualized services that stores data only on the aforementioned secure and HIPAA-compliant data environment.
• VMware: VMware has teamed up with Peake Healthcare Innovations to combine the capabilities of real-time medical imaging analysis with the virtualized and mobile world. Essentially, Peake’s cloud-based imaging technology merges with VMware’s vSphere and VMware View to enable clinicians to view medical images on the go, on whatever device they choose. Like the Dell solution, VMware’s solution has eliminated some issues of mobility security since information is kept on the cloud and off local-device storage. Intel has joined in on this venture by optimizing Peake technology with VMware’s technology running on Xeon CPUs.

You can be sure that won’t be the last of the buzz coming from HIMSS12, so check back in with The VAR Guy for another recap of what technologies are invading and innovating in the healthcare vertical.