Red River pushes into health care IT market

Red River has launched a new health IT business in a move to push into a growing and lucrative sector of the government and private sector health care markets.

Red River Healthcare will focus on working with hospitals, medical device companies and clinical application providers, and its enterprise technology specialists will help health care facilities develop and deploy a technological infrastructure to support patient care applications, the company said in a release.

The decision to move into the new market was influenced in part by a survey that the company conducted.

Partnering with Zogby Analytics, Red River pinged more than 1,000 Americans about their thoughts on the health care industry, and more than 60 percent of participants thought that the industry should develop new mobile technologies that facilitate physician-patient communication.

In addition to that finding, 73 percent of participants believed that technology can expedite processes for referrals, prescriptions and test results. 65 percent were concerned that outdated health care technology could delay treatment, Red River reported.

Charlie Franco has been tapped to be the director of the new business.

“The demand from both patients and health care providers make now the time to breakthrough from our traditional health care delivery methods and move forward to a new means of delivering health care services that are more efficient, secure and successful,” he said.

As Red River Healthcare director, Franco will build out the sales organization for the business across the United States, and will develop strategic relationships that will enable the company to meet customer demand, Red River said.

The company has made a number of new partnerships to buff up the new business, including ones with Hielix, Siemens, Rubbermaid, Extension, Spacelabs Medical, and Sotera.

Red River holds the No. 93 spot on Washington Technology’s 2013 Top 100 Prime Contractors rankings.