Report: Cerner and Amazon Web Services on verge of major partnership

Newswire: Seattle.

Dateline: Nov. 22, 2017.

Amazon Web Services is set to announce a major partnership with Cerner, the electronic health records giant, CNBC reported on Wednesday.

The announcement will come at Amazon Web Services’ annual conference next week in Las Vegas. CNBC quoted unnamed sources in reporting the development; neither Cerner nor Amazon Web Services responded when asked for comment.

CNBC says the partnership centers on HealtheIntent, a Cerner product that it pitches to hospitals as allowing them to analyze volumes of clinical data to lower treatment costs and improve patient care.

The development comes as Cerner is close to beginning a $782 million contract with the Department of Veterans Affairs to deliver its off-the-shelf EHR technology and align the VA’s electronic health records system with the Department of Defense’s.

CNBC noted that health care has been among the slowest major industry to move information into cloud services. It quoted one healthcare executive as saying Cerner provides “a source of comfort” to others in the industry.

For its part, Amazon Web Services has already taken steps to protect health records to maintain compliance with the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, making it an attractive partner for EHR companies looking to expand cloud services.

Read the full story here.

(Front page image of Cerner headquarters via Wikipedia.)