From a round of employee layoffs to teaming up with Apple on a new health records-sharing initiative, here are 11 updates on Cerner's operations, software products and partnerships reported by Becker's Hospital Review in June.
Editor's note: The updates are listed in the order they were reported.
1. Cerner said it plans to launch a new hybrid work model this fall that will let employees choose between working at the Kansas City, Mo.-based company's headquarters or from a remote location.
2. Backed by the support of smaller hospitals and its scalable clinical systems, Cerner has secured 25 percent of the overall U.S. hospital EHR market share and 27 percent of hospital beds, according to a recent KLAS Research report.
3. Cerner partnered with Apple in support of Apple's new health data-sharing feature slated to become available this fall. As one of the EHR partners on the feature, participating Cerner U.S. healthcare providers can let patients share their health data, such as heart rate, detected falls, hours of sleep and exercise minutes, directly to the EHR.
4. Sixty-two percent of customers said they are satisfied with Cerner's software, and 28 percent reported having deep different-vendor interoperability with Cerner, according to a recent KLAS Research report.
5. The Biden administration recommended $2.7 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs' EHR modernization program with Cerner for the upcoming fiscal year.
6. Cerner eliminated 500 positions across its global workforce. The company comprises 13,000 workers across its Kansas City, Mo.-based campus and about 26,000 employees across the globe. Cerner did not disclose how many employees based in Kansas City would be laid off but did say that it would retain its status as the metro area's largest private employer.
7. The VA and the U.S. Department of Defense began preparing to test their single, interoperable Cerner EHR system for the first time since the agencies began working on the program six years ago. While a timeline isn't set, VA and the Defense Department said they will deploy both versions of the Cerner software at North Chicago, Ill.-based Capt. James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center.
8. While Cerner strongly encourages its employees to get the COVID-19 vaccine, the EHR vendor told Becker's that it has refrained from issuing a vaccine mandate for its workers.
9. Washington, D.C.-based Children's National Hospital and Cerner launched a digital health innovation accelerator as part of the organizations' pediatric health IT institute, according to a June 11 news release.
10. With an 88 percent ranking in functionality and adoption, Cerner secured one of the top spots as a vendor large hospitals use for population health technologies and support, according to a recent KLAS Research analysis.
11. As the Department of Veterans Affairs rolls out its $16 billion Cerner EHR, a recent Office of Inspector General report revealed that six of the seven VA hospitals reviewed are not filing patients' records into EHRs properly.