The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT has tapped Acumen Solutions, a Vienna, Va.-based business and technology consulting firm, to provide cloud computing-based customer relationship management services.
ONC kicked off the procurement late last year, seeking a CRM solution for regional extension centers. The Department of Health and Human Services envisions the creation of 70 or more centers, intended to help providers achieve "meaningful use" of electronic health records.
The cloud-based CRM would track the centers' work with providers and provide reports on the work.
Acumen said it will deploy Salesforce.com's CRM and project management systems, which will offer centers "the ability to manage all interactions with medical providers related to their selection and implementation of an EHR solution," Acumen said.
Acumen is a Salesforce.com consulting partner.
"The most pressing CRM challenge for HHS was getting this system up and running quickly so they could launch their program," said Donita Prakash, the chief management officer at Acumen.
ONC needed a system that could be deployed rapidly and with a high degree of flexibility, added Marty Young, managing director of Acumen.
"This could only be accomplished through a [software-as-a-service] cloud computing platform," he said.
Cloud proponents say hosting applications externally in the cloud eliminates the need to deploy software on a customer's in-house server, saving time and reducing management chores.
