From Clarisse O'Shaughnessy: "Re: CCHIT. Here's a new article on inpatient EHRs." Link. CCHIT announces… Not on the list, obviously: Cerner, Meditech, McKesson, GE, and several more. Similar to the last CPR, Cerner and Epic are the highest rated solution for broad functionality with all other major vendor's being a generation behind (according to Gartner). Cerner's all for it and has a summary of the bill. Cerner says KU Hospital let the city of Kansas City down by picking Epic. Cerner wins a nine-year contract with the VA to provide Millennium PathNet to 150 hospitals and 800 clinics. It will be Cerner’s largest Pathnet installation.

From Red: "Re: KUMED. Cerner should be getting the last laugh with EPIC and KUMED.… Cerner should be getting the last laugh with EPIC and KUMED. Their project manager (must be a Cerner lover) is putting the EPIC kids up at a 40-something buck a night motel. HIStalk's hard-knocks MBA curriculum for the benefit of Cerner, Eclipsys, McKesson, and others: if your competitor can charge whatever they want and still beat you, your product needs work. Topics like Medsphere and the VA's Cerner decision are important, so you might want to sign up for a free subscription. Scott also comments on the VA's replacement of VistA lab with Cerner.

I like to do a high-level business update about the healthcare IT industry once or… The pressure that will put on the other strategic players in the market, the traditional acquirers of choice like McKesson and Cerner and GE, they’ll start seeing more competition in situations where they’re looking to buy things. Cerner I still rate Cerner as being an A overall. Everybody you talk to, you ask them who frightens them in the marketplace, and everybody’s going to say Cerner. People can throw stones at different parts of their products and capabilities, but the reality is that Cerner, for better or worse, has defined the hospital information system landscape in a way that’s favorable to them. Cerner’s question going forward comes back to where do you find growth going forward? When you’ve built up to be as big as they are, where do you go? I would expect that they wrestle with that internally. I’d give Cerner an A. Do they want to focus on revenue cycle, or get into broader information systems in hospitals? Given that they can touch so many hospitals, if I’m sitting in the competitive intelligence department of McKesson or Cerner or one of those places, I’d keep a very close eye on MedAssets.

From Dr. Lisa Cutty: "Re: Agfa. We had a big rumor going around at MEDICA.… Remember that Nassau University Medical Center CIO who got in trouble for taking hockey tickets from Cerner who claimed she didn't know she was a public official? That may well have been true given the complex organizational structure issues involving publicly funded hospitals.

From Jill Purity: "Re: Epic. Lots of prestigious organizations have bought Epic, run wildly over…" She claims by name that GE, Siemens, and Cerner reserve that right in their contracts. Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs will purchase the Cerner RxStation for medication automation.

From Todd Taylor, MD: "Re: Azyxxi. Yes, Microsoft Azyxxi is for real and supported by… I remember signing a contract with Cerner years ago and seeing the language allowing them free access to sell de-identified data.

Regardless of how you feel about how multi-national conglomerates have changed healthcare IT, you must… GE Healthcare, formed in 2000 and headquartered in the United Kingdom, replaced the old GE Medical Systems Information Technology (GEMS-IT) and brought medical imaging, patient monitoring, and drug research into the fold to form a $17 billion business unit (over ten times Cerner's size, to put that into perspective). Healthcare IT has two camps, the conglomerates like Siemens and GE and McKesson on one side and the "we built everything" group on the other side like Cerner and Epic.

From Saas Man: "Re: athenahealth. Here is a link to a recent CNBC interview with… Perhaps these are their next steps?" Stiill need convincing that real-world medical device connectivity is the next battleground (as Laurent Rotival strongly suggested)? Cerner brings 32 medical device to KC to get briefed on its CareAware connectivity kit. Inga's Update Former Cerner VP of worldwide sales and business development Michael Mickens is named VP of sales and client services for etrials.