Intermountain and Cerner Announce Strategic Partnership

With a shared vision to improve quality and make health care costs sustainable, Intermountain Healthcare and Cerner Corporation are announcing a multiyear strategic partnership.  

Drawing on Intermountain’s leadership in quality improvement and data analytics and Cerner’s expertise in IT, the multiyear partnership will implement the Cerner EMR and revenue cycle solutions across all of Intermountain’s hospitals and clinics.

Cerner is the best-positioned supplier of clinical information systems to accelerate key functionality available to Intermountain’s clinicians now while building on Intermountain’s legacy of innovation to support the delivery of high-value care in the future.

Broader than the intent and efforts of US health care reform, both companies are committed to an approach that focuses on involving everyone in achieving better health—hospitals, physicians, patients, insurance companies, and others. Both companies know that advanced IT will play a critical role in achieving that vision.

The collaboration between Intermountain and Cerner will look to fully leverage Intermountain’s work, including its clinical processes and data warehouse. It also will seek to build a new set of tools for a post-fee-for-service world in areas such as activity-based costing. Several key Cerner leaders and staff will relocate to Salt Lake City, Utah, to be led by Cerner executive vice president Jeff Townsend, to join with Intermountain’s executives in driving this collaboration.  

Intermountain’s selection of Cerner was the result of a comprehensive yearlong decision-making process. Intermountain looked at a range of criteria, including clinical and financial functionality, innovative culture, and population health-related benchmarks such as supplier commitment to the open interchange of information.  

Sources: Cerner, Intermountain Healthcare