In just another example of the wide array of competitors entering the managed services and cloud computing space, Electronic Health Records vendor Allscripts (MDRX) has announced that it has signed a contract to manage all of the IT services of Liberty Hospital in Liberty, Mo.  As part of the deal Liberty Hospital’s IT staff is moving over to Allscripts. Here are the details and its implications for managed services providers.

Allscripts, like many EHR vendors has always sold direct to customers, but began courting the channel as well a few years ago, signing a deal with one of the big three IT distributors, Synnex. A quick look at Synnex’s web site seems to show that the partnership is still in place. And a quick look over at Allscripts’ site shows that IT managed services are among the services offered by the company. Under IT Managed Services the company lists the following offerings:

As for today’s deal, Liberty Hospital’s CEO David Feess said: "Liberty Hospital currently uses Allscripts for our electronic health records and physician order entry. This expanded relationship will allow the hospital to focus on providing top patient care while Allscripts provides the expertise on the Information Technology side to improve clinical, financial and operational outcomes.”

Liberty Hospital has several items on its IT strategy agenda in the next year and a half including implementation of the federal government's Meaningful Use Program, ICD-10 Coding Update and Health Information Exchanges.

MSPmentor wonders if there is a larger trend afoot here. Has your organization seen more niche IT vendors moving into providing outsourced IT services? What strategies have you found effective when bidding against such companies?

Allscripts, like many EHR vendors has always sold direct to customers, but began courting the channel as well a few years ago, signing a deal with one of the big three IT distributors, Synnex. A quick look at Synnex’s web site seems to show that the partnership is still in place. And a quick look over at Allscripts’ site shows that IT managed services are among the services offered by the company. Under IT Managed Services the company lists the following offerings:

As for today’s deal, Liberty Hospital’s CEO David Feess said in a prepared statement: "Liberty Hospital currently uses Allscripts for our electronic health records and physician order entry. This expanded relationship will allow the hospital to focus on providing top patient care while Allscripts provides the expertise on the Information Technology side to improve clinical, financial and operational outcomes.”

Liberty Hospital has several items on its IT strategy agenda in the next year and a half including implementation of the federal government's Meaningful Use Program, ICD-10 Coding Update and Health Information Exchanges, the company said in a statement.

MSPmentor wonders if there is a larger trend afoot here. Has your organization seen more niche/vertical IT vendors moving into providing outsourced IT services? What strategies have you found effective when bidding against such companies? Or is it better to form a partnership with the potential competitor?