Concord Launches eHealth Ready Partner Program

The effort, dubbed the eHealth Ready Partner Program, includes certification on three different levels of participation. The program launched with more than 100 solution provider participants.

"Our eHealth Ready Partner Program is designed to extend trust to third-party vendors," said Dayton Semerjian, Concord's director of strategic alliances. "Through rigorous certification and compatibility testing, our software and hardware partners demonstrate their commitment to jointly develop high quality new customer solutions."

Partners can join the program at either the Certified, Compatible or Premium level.

At the Certified level, the program incorporates third-party hardware and software products that have proven that they add value to Concord's eHealth Suite while maintaining overall system performance.

The Compatible level provides channel partners with additional incentives to develop new methods to leverage data gathered by the eHealth Suite. At this level, channel partners will be encouraged to enter into joint development agreements with Marlboro, Mass.-based Concord to build product integrations for applications and operational support systems.

Finally, at the Premium level, Concord announced plans to work with channel partners to establish relationships that deliver the highest-quality customer solutions. Though plans for specific solutions on this level are still spotty, Semerjian said they will evolve over the coming months.

Steve Johnson, senior director of strategic alliances at OPNET, a Bethesda, Md.-based solution provider, said the biggest winners from his company's Compatible-level relationship with Concord are the customers.

"We have developed solutions to combine critical performance data with topology and configuration information to produce and end-to-end model for planning and advanced troubleshooting," Johnson said. "Our joint solutions provide more value than either company could deliver on its own."