Agreement with Oracle-Cerner could help healthcare systems share data

With the acquisition of Cerner, announced Monday, Oracle says it will be able to provide medical professionals with digital tools that allow easy access to information from the cloud. Cerner is based in Kansas City, Mo. will also serve as the “anchor asset” for the enterprise technology company to expand into healthcare. Oracle, based in Austin, Texas, and Cerner did not respond to requests for comment.

Healthcare providers have been trying and failing to attack this data-sharing issue for more than a decade, as demonstrated by the UK government’s push to unify the health records of patients. patient. In 2011, it Turn off A nine-year effort to link patient data from all parts of the National Health Service, says the initiative cannot live up to its original purpose.

The lack of interoperability frameworks across the industry can prevent clinicians from getting a 360-degree view of the patient, says Schibell. “The pandemic has brought to light the fragmentation of care in health care systems and the persistent problem of disparate, disparate data,” she said.

“This is an unsolved dilemma that continues to cripple workflow efficiency. Ultimately, it increases healthcare spending and hinders data-driven healthcare,” she said.

Jason Warrelmann, global director of healthcare and life sciences at robotic process automation maker

UiPath Inc.,

says the entry of enterprise technology providers into the medical records space accelerates the creation of a 360-degree view of the patient. Success depends on the ability to add tools that allow disparate electronic systems to communicate with each other, connecting information stored in the cloud or across the company’s data centers, he said.

“Cerner is… the central database of all the clinical charts of a patient, but what else touches the patient is not clinically controlled,” said Mr. Warren. That could include information in the contact center or case management, care management and mobile apps, all of which aid in patient treatment, he said.

For Novant Health, a regional healthcare network based in North Carolina, building interoperability between different software platforms goes hand in hand with a move to the cloud, in which users access access online computer resources from third parties. Novant Health is not a customer of Cerner and most of its electronic health records are stored in

Microsoft Corp.

database, a company spokesman said.

With interoperability, “we have the opportunity to aggregate this data to turn it into action for our providers, while providing us with the capabilities needed to collaborate on patient care.” , no matter where that care is taking place,” said Karl Hightower, senior vice president and chief data officer, Novant Health.

Laura Marquez, assistant vice president of information technology applications at Farmington, Conn-based UConn Health, said the hospital has continued to discuss with the electronic health record provider the switch to cloud. The cloud offers more flexibility in areas like scaling compute and storage resources, she said. It also helps hospitals access new technology faster than implementing it themselves, she said.

“Large enterprise technology executives know how to do this on a larger scale than anyone else can,” said Tom Miller, a senior fellow focusing on health policy at the American Enterprise Institute. any particular hospital or even health record system can handle. But despite the potential, there could be challenges with enforcement, he said, including storing data between different cloud providers.

Robert Parker, senior vice president of research firm International Data Corp., said Oracle and other major tech companies are investing in industry-specific technology to broaden the appeal of its platform. they are in different industries. “The Oracle-Cerner agreement represents that, a health record data collection and retention service that will open up relationships with the broader healthcare industry,” said Mr. Parker.

Write letter for Angus Loten at angus.loten@wsj.com and Suman Bhattacharyya at suman.bhattacharyya@wsj.com