MALVERN, PA – Healthcare IT vendors – including the likes of Siemens, Kodak and McKesson – are forging or strengthening partnerships with research universities to enhance R&D and clinical testing.

In early December, Siemens Medical Solutions in Malvern, Pa., announced a five-year alliance with Fairview-University Medical Center in Minneapolis to provide physicians with access to Siemens' diagnostic-imaging solutions.

Siemens president Tom McCausland cited a triad of shared priorities: patient care, education and research. "Through our alliance, [Fairview-University] will be able to deliver increased diagnostic capabilities," he said.

Last fall, Rochester, N.Y.-based Eastman Kodak Co. signed a long-term agreement with the University of Rochester Medical Center focused on innovations in digital medical imaging.

"We've had a longstanding relationship with URMC, but it wasn't very structured," said Betty Dean, Kodak's R&D collaboration manager. "This will include studies and testing and clinical trials."

The pact also requires URMC to purchase equipment like Kodak's newest picture archiving and communications system for retrieving, reviewing and storing radiology images.

McKesson, meanwhile, is early in a 10-year agreement with Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., to develop a system for clinical decision support and physician order entry called Horizon Expert Orders.

"We acquired the intellectual property rights from Vanderbilt, and integrated the code within the rest of our clinical products," said Jim Nemecek, senior vice president of clinical solutions for McKesson Provider Technologies in Alpharetta, Ga.

"Together we're working on content, implementation methodology and physician adoption."

Over the past two years, Vanderbilt has hosted more than 85 demonstrations of the technology, which is now live in facilities such as St. Vincent's Hospital in Birmingham, Ala., and Memorial Health University Medical Center in Savannah, Ga.

Analysts say academic centers provide IT companies access to top-tier researchers and serve as havens for clinical testing.

"[Vendors] need good reference sites to become more competitive," said Mike Davis of HIMSS Analytics in Chicago. n