Oracle reviewing Cerner products to identify where third-party tech can be removed

Oracle is conducting a review of Cerner’s entire product portfolio to identify areas where the cloud giant’s technology can be substituted for that of third parties, according to the company’s CEO.

Speaking Monday on the company’s fourth quarter earnings call, Safra Catz said Oracle was undertaking the review as it moves Cerner’s entire electronic health records ecosystem to Oracle cloud infrastructure.

“I also want to share how we will be running Cerner since it will impact their contribution to Oracle going forward. We are already working actively to build and implement world-class healthcare cloud capabilities,” she said. “This means that we are reviewing their entire product portfolio to identify areas where we can include Oracle technology rather than third-party products as well as moving them to Oracle cloud infrastructure.”

Cerner previously has partnered with cloud service provider Amazon Web Services, including for a platform to incorporate artificial intelligence to improve system usability and to provide predictive insights for patient care.  

The comments came as Oracle reported a 6% year-on-year rise in GAAP operating profit for the quarter, while total revenue for the period rose by 10% to $11.8 billion. Both figures were reported on a constant currency basis.

Speaking at a public briefing last week following the closure of Oracle’s $28.3 billion acquisition of Cerner, CTO and Chairman Larry Ellison set out a future vision for the company’s integration of Cerner’s Millennium platform, which includes the addition of new modules such as voice activation and integrated telemedicine.

“We [a combination of Oracle and Cerner] are going to modernize and expand Millennium substantially. The first thing we are going to do is to make it easy to use. We’re going to have a voice user interface to Millennium that makes it easier for doctors to access medicine and orders,” he said.

Ellison set out Oracle’s wider vision for Cerner, which will be the foundation of a new project which includes plans for the cloud giant to build a unified health database that will hold data belonging to millions of Americans in an anonymized form.

Oracle wants to create a new overarching nationwide system for patient health records across the U.S., which according to Ellison could overcome patient data fragmentation and allow doctors at any hospital to access a patient’s data when needed.