Recently wrote a brief post on the GE-Boston Scientific partnership, but left a few questions unanswered awaiting a reply from one of the companies. Received an email today that helps clarify the partnership.

First-off, it is an exclusive partnership between these two companies. No need to despair, however, as the exclusive clause is for a very brief 90 days. Such short-term clauses are designed to allow a partner to get some early traction in the market, via a media blitz, but that is about it.

Boston Scientific also went on to say that LATITUDE is HL7 compliant, thus having the ability to interface with any EMR solution that adheres to the HL7 standard. Granted, it will take a bit more work on the part of a hospital’s IT system to integrate LATITUDE with their EMR via HL7, versus the out -of-the-box integration that GE will offer with Centricity, but it is possible.

As an added note, Boston Scientific also stated that they are working with competitor Medtronic’s Paceart group to insure interoperability with that platform as well.  Looks like everyone might be a winner there.