Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1194306
29 CIO / HEALTH IT How the Cerner, Amazon partnership is unfolding By Laura Dyrda S ince partnering with Amazon in July 2019, Cerner has made plans to in- crease efficiency and lower costs. During the company's third quarter earnings call on Oct. 24, Chairman and CEO Brent Shafer outlined the vision and possibilities for the future. "Our work with [Amazon Web Services] is expected to enable delivery of scalable and secure solutions in a faster, more agile way, with the power of advanced artificial intelli- gence and machine learning tools embedded in the workflow," he said, according to a tran- script from Seeking Alpha. "Our clients can expect to see advancement in the overall user experience for consumers and care teams, as well as their overall health system and financial operations." e partners plan to modernize Cerner's platforms and soware development ap- proach to accelerate innovation and time to market. ey also hope their new develop- ments will decrease operational burden for healthcare providers. "is also represents an opportunity to re- duce Cerner's costs over time and is part of our focus on long-term profitability improve- ments," said Mr. Shafer. Cerner can now leverage Amazon's consumer knowledge for future generations of technology. Mr. Shafer also said the company plans to move its HealtheIntent platform, which Cerner currently hosts, to Amazon Web Ser- vices through the first half of 2020 to lower costs of operation for the platform. "At a tacti- cal level, it will drive efficiencies and drive up cost optimization as we move forward," said Mr. Shafer. "We'll continue to move the plat- forms. CareAware will be the next platform we move over to AWS." As a result of the transition, Cerner will be able to rededicate data center components and space to its projects with the Department of Defense and Veteran's Administration. n Cerner issues another round of layoffs By Jackie Drees C erner laid off 131 U.S.-based employees as part of its effort to increase operating margins to 20 per- cent, according to Kansas City Business Journal. The layoffs, which will affect 60 employees at the Kansas City, Mo.-based company's headquarters, were the last round in 2019, the publication reported. Cerner onboard- ed more than 4,000 associates in 2019 and will continue to hire hundreds more in 2020, a Cerner spokesperson said in a Nov. 12 statement emailed to Becker's Hospital Review. Employees impacted by the layoffs are eligible for new hiring opportunities, the spokesperson added. "As mentioned in our earnings call [in July], we're looking to identify organizational efficiencies as we implement our new operating model," the spokesperson said. "Part of that strategy includes a realignment of resources focused on key growth areas across the company." In September, Cerner laid off 255 employees to help meet its operating margins target. Additional cost savings initia- tives in 2019 included the EHR vendor's $40 million buyout program, which provided payouts and benefits to some tenured employees who agreed to leave the company. To meet its margin targets, Cerner needed to cut an esti- mated $200 million in costs by the end of 2019, according to the report. The company announced its operating mar- gin targets of 20 percent and 22.5 percent for the fourth quarters of 2019 and 2020, respectively, when it over- hauled part of its board of directors in April. Cerner employs around 30,000 people, with 14,000 em- ployees based in Kansas City, according to the report. n Google developing enhanced search functions for EHRs By Jackie Drees G oogle Health is looking to improve search func- tions to enhance physicians' abilities to search through medical records and to improve the quali- ty of health-related search results presented to consumers across Google and YouTube, according to CNBC. David Feinberg, MD, head of Google Health, presented the technology giant's new health-related search ideas at the HLTH healthcare conference in Las Vegas, Oct. 27-30, according to the report. Dr. Feinberg left his post as CEO and president of Danville, Pa.-based Geisinger Health Sys- tem last November to lead Google's health division. Google will not compete with existing EHR vendors but rather provide search function technology to integrate with EHR systems to help with data entry work, including charting, assigning billing codes and filling out fields in medical records, according to the report. "Imagine a search bar on top of your EHR that needs no training," Dr. Feinberg said, according to CNBC. With Google's technology, a physician would be able to start typing in the EHR search bar, similar to searching for answers on Google, and the records system would begin to automat- ically fill out responses and offer relevant information. Dr. Feinberg is also working with the Google search and YouTube teams to improve health searches by reducing the amount of false information and advice about health available to consumers. One idea to help stop the spread of false information is to create a separate search site for Google health searches, similar to Google Flights, according to the report. n