HDS seeks good health VARs

Storage vendor wants partners with healthcare market skills to push product

Storage vendor Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) is on the hunt for healthcare VARs to drive sales of its new medical data archiving product.

The Hitachi Clinical Repository (HCR) product is based on several of the vendor's pre-existing technologies and was unveiled to partners earlier this month.

It is designed to make it easier for healthcare professionals to co-ordinate and view different types of patient information, including images and raw data.

Mark Clark, healthcare director at HDS, said the product should save healthcare organisations money by speeding up the processing of patient data.

He explained: "In the NHS, budgets are being squeezed and there is a lot of pressure to make processes more efficient in order to save costs."

This, coupled with the size and complexity of the market, makes the healthcare sector a difficult one for VARs to get a handle on, Clark warned.

He said: "Healthcare is a key vertical market for us and we have partners who understand the jargon and the nuances of healthcare institutions, but it is not an easy market to sell into if you do not have that knowledge."

To overcome this, the firm is looking for healthcare-focused VARs to market HCR as part of its partner recruitment activities.

"The product can be scaled for use by local trusts, pharmacies or for larger, more centralised deployments in both private and public healthcare," added Clark. "So, partners with experience and knowledge of selling to a wide range of healthcare settings would be ideal."