Oracle has confirmed it has acquired global electronic health record (EHR) provider, Cerner, in a deal worth around £22.4billion ($28.3billion).
News about the deal was first reported on Friday (December 17) with the the Wall Street Journal saying the deal could be “finalised soon” as long as talks do not fall apart or “drag out”.
Larry Ellison, chairman and chief technology officer at Oracle, said: “Working together, Cerner and Oracle have the capacity to transform healthcare delivery by providing medical professionals with better information—enabling them to make better treatment decisions resulting in better patient outcomes.
“With this acquisition, Oracle’s corporate mission expands to assume the responsibility to provide our overworked medical professionals with a new generation of easier-to-use digital tools that enable access to information via a hands-free voice interface to secure cloud applications. This new generation of medical information systems promises to lower the administrative workload burdening our medical professionals, improve patient privacy and outcomes, and lower overall healthcare costs.”
A report in the Financial Times said that a deal would help cement Oracle in the fast growing health IT sector as Cerner is one of the largest provider of hospital electronic medical systems to the US healthcare market and a leading supplier to the NHS.
Headquartered in Texas in the United States of America, Oracle defines itself as a “cloud technology company” and offers cloud application and platform services.
David Feinberg, president and CEO at Cerner, added: “Joining Oracle as a dedicated Industry Business Unit provides an unprecedented opportunity to accelerate our work modernizing electronic health records (EHR), improving the caregiver experience, and enabling more connected, high-quality and efficient patient care.
“We are also very excited that Oracle is committed to maintaining and growing our community presence, including in the Kansas City area.”
This news marks another significant further push into the health sector by leading technology companies after Microsoft, confirmed in April 2021 that it was buying AI natural language computer software company, Nuance Communications in a deal valued at £14.3billion ($19.7 billion).
22 December 2021 @ 15:56
When you see these numbers you realise why the NHS has very little clout with its dominant suppliers. This deal for 1 supplier equates to 1/5 of the NHS total annual budget.
Lets not be fooled – this is a grab of US customers, not Uk. But would still be interested to know if Oracle can simply rub their hands sbd exploit the data.
Will be interested to see how Cerner’s licensing now evolves.