A report released from KLAS this week offered insights into Cerner customers' perspectives on some big changes to the company, including its recently-hired president and CEO and its new revenue-cycle offering, RevElate.  

Although the report did not include customer reactions to Oracle's planned Cerner acquisition, KLAS researchers said the deal could potentially complicate the company's future.  

"Findings show that when acquisitions go well – which happens about 40% of the time – it often leads to improved loyalty and evangelism among customers," they noted.  

"Conversely, when acquisitions go poorly – which happens about 42% of the time – customers are twice as likely to leave their vendor."  

WHY IT MATTERS  

The KLAS report noted that over the past five years, Cerner’s overall performance scores with the analyst firm have remained steady – but confidence in Cerner’s ability to deliver has declined.  

"The customer experience is highly variable, as customers report Cerner has not been a consistent guide," said researchers. "Several customers have been highly successful, but they often state their success is due to their own efforts and has sometimes been achieved in spite of Cerner."  

Cerner's new leader, Dr. David Feinberg, will have to overcome several hurdles, analysts found.

The overwhelming majority of respondents had neutral, positive or very positive perceptions of Feinberg, with only one reaction characterized as negative.

"Many respondents are optimistic about his appointment, though they indicate the outcomes remain to be seen," read the report.    

"As customers look to the future, they wonder what products and services Cerner may discontinue as they refine their focus, what impact Feinberg will have on company culture and how he will influence Cerner’s execution," it continued.  

However, customers did not display the same levels of optimism with the company's new revenue-cycle product, RevElate.  

"Many report having more questions than answers about the new solution," said KLAS researchers.  

"The Cerner RevElate direction makes sense, but I need to see Cerner deliver now," said one customer quoted in the report. "I have seen poor code and broken products in Cerner Patient Accounting. I want to know whether those parts of Cerner’s delivery will be fixed in the new product.

"I want to see the Cerner RevElate product be a reliable solution based on vetted, high-quality code. I have not seen that yet from Cerner. I need to see before I will believe it at this point," the customer continued.  

THE LARGER TREND  

Cerner spent the last quarter of 2021 dominating headlines – due to news of Feinberg's hiring, the company's vaccine mandate for employees, the ongoing saga of its electronic health record modernization deal with the Department of Veterans Affairs or, of course, the behemoth Oracle-Cerner deal.

Industry leaders said the changes could have enduring ramifications.  

"These types of transactions do have the potential to more quickly change a culture, accelerate resources, and make available technical research and development that might not otherwise have had the funding nor focus to mature as quickly," said Tressa Springmann, chief information and digital officer at Baltimore-based LifeBridge Health, a Cerner customer, who spoke recently with Healthcare IT News about the planned Oracle acquisition.  

We also spoke recently with Mutaz Shegewi, research director for provider IT transformation strategies at IDC, who also emphasized the need for a clean merger of the two giant companies.   

"There's clearly a lot to benefit from this partnership," he said. "[But] we know across all different domains when it comes to the merger and acquisition situation, they can be quite tricky and the majority actually are not executed cleanly. And that has implications over the long run.

"There are the smaller minority of them that actually benefit manifold from the process," he added. "And that, of course, I'm sure, is the aspiration for both Cerner and Oracle leadership."   

ON THE RECORD  

"We are in a rural area, so we are small in the grand scheme of things," said one customer quoted in the KLAS report. "I want to know that we, as a small rural healthcare system, aren’t going to be lost in the shuffle.

"With Feinberg’s clinical background and past work at Geisinger, which has some rural healthcare opportunities, I think he will understand and make sure that we are included in the path forward," the customer continued.

Kat Jercich is senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Twitter: @kjercich
Email: kjercich@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.