The Cerner Health Conference kicked off Sunday at the Kansas City Convention Center. Don Trigg,…
The Cerner Health Conference kicked off Sunday at the Kansas City Convention Center. Don Trigg, Cerner's chief marketing officer, offered to connect me with some attendees for a report. (I should note that, despite my occasional criticisms of Cerner, Don has always been a straight shooter, has invited me to Cerner events, and offered to connect me with sources there, all in a casual, non-official way, which I appreciate). The overwhelming majority of sessions are either entirely client-presented or have a panel with Cerner people and other clients.
How would you compare the value you get from attending Cerner’s conference to other conferences like HIMSS?
Helen: We're just 45 minutes north of Kansas City, so the location factors in.
Reid: Being in Kansas City, there’s been an even larger presence of Cerner associates. Cerner has electronic, template-based charting.
Stephanie: Team members were here and some of the Cerner documentation team were dealing with some challenges that’s been difficult to diagnose, working over phone and conference calls and sending log files back and forth. Cerner has taken a stand as an organization and said, "We are going to focus on the current code level. Then, lots of sessions in different areas that focus on a combination of presentations from clients in the trenches and living this, and also some sessions from the Cerner team about what’s going on today in problem solving and development. What Cerner highlighted today is the Lights On Network, a Web-based application that allows you to drill down to an institutional and user level on response times. We're very pleased with system performance improvements that Cerner continues to develop from data they get from Lights On.
Are you planning to check out any particular Cerner products?
Stephanie: We're an integrated Cerner site using a lot of the solutions." Our Lady of the Lake has created our version using Cerner tools, but it’s pieces and parts and not quite as seamless.
What would you say has changed most dramatically about Cerner in the last couple of years?
Stephanie: I've seen consistent dedication to partnership, to collaboration from Neal Patterson down, a true interest in what’s going on and how Cerner can impact that. When the Cerner brass comes to visit your hospital, they’re out there and want to know what’s going on. To feel that we’re able to collaborate with our colleagues and vendor partners in a meaningful fashion and with the patient as our primary responsibility – what more can you ask for? We're continuing to see clinician involvement on the Cerner side.
