Since Oracle completed its $28.4 billion acquisition of Cerner in June, the tech giant has made multiple changes to Cerner's leadership and operations.
An internal email reveals leadership shake-up
In July, an internal email from an Oracle executive was shared on Reddit and described some of the first changes the tech company was planning on making to Cerner's EHR business.
One was to change the name of Cerner to Oracle Health.
As of Nov. 2, the company is still going by Oracle Cerner, and Oracle has not further elaborated on when this name change will be completed.
The email also mentioned a shake-up of internal leadership.
Former Cerner president and CEO David Feinberg, MD, would now serve as chair of Oracle Health.
Former chief client and services officer Travis Dalton, who led Cerner's government services, was named general manager of Oracle Health.
Jerome Labat, former chief technology officer, and other Cerner tech executives would now report to Don Johnson, Oracle executive vice president, who was responsible for overseeing Oracle Health engineering.
Cerner to use Oracle development tools
In an Oracle earnings call Sept. 12, Larry Ellison, chair and chief technology officer of Oracle, shared that Cerner would begin to use a new set of Oracle development tools.
Apex, a "new generation" of application development tools, would allow Cerner to modernize its technology.
Projects that would have taken three or four years without Apex now take less than a year.
Mr. Ellison predicted that it would complete a new Cerner health management product within 12 months.
Cerner employee benefits change
Oracle made changes to some PTO benefits for certain Cerner employees who are classified as hourly.
Prior to Oracle acquiring Cerner, employees had access to flexible PTO, accruing up to 25 days for those who had worked at the company for more than 10 years, but that will now change for hourly employees.
According to Oracle's benefits page, hourly employees with tenure of three years or less will receive 13 PTO days a year, and those with more than three years' tenure will receive 18.
Some Cerner employees expressed their dissatisfaction with the change on Reddit, stating that this move was a way to "force people out of the door voluntarily."
Oracle also sent out new offer letters for employees to sign.
New product offerings for Cerner
During the Oracle Cerner Health Conference, Oracle shared four new enhancements it is working on deploying and piloting in order to modernize Cerner's electronic health record and build a more open and more connected cloud-enabled platform.
The first is Seamless Exchange. This product is designed to help providers see a clearer picture of a patient's health history and eliminate duplicate information in electronic health records.
Oracle said it would help bring in external and internal patient data while eliminating information overload.
The product is currently being tested with some providers.
The second is Oracle Cerner's Advance dashboard. This new dashboard allows health systems to capture information such as health outcomes, patient experience and the system's finances from EHRs.
The dashboard can also identify areas to reduce burdens on staff, such as examining how much time clinicians are spending on EHRs, according to Oracle Cerner.
The third is Oracle Cerner virtual models of care. This program, which is being piloted at health systems using "virtual nurses," can perform assessments and documentations of patients at admission and discharge.
According to Oracle Cerner, this program can enable other nurses to perform physical assessments and spend more time caring for patients.
The last new product offering is RevElate. This product is designed to simplify the billing processes.
Oracle Cerner hopes to release the new patient accounting product widely before the end of the year. According to the company, it will offer more automation and intelligence in billing.
Two Cerner campuses to close
On Oct. 31, Oracle Cerner said it plans to close two Kansas City, Mo.-area campuses.
The company is closing its World Headquarters in North Kansas City, Mo., and its Realization campus in Kansas City and consolidating operations to its Innovations campus in Kansas City.
A company spokesperson said the move would "provide employees with the best environment in which to work and collaborate," and that Oracle Cerner is actively hiring.