Epic, Oracle Cerner Execs Have Big Growth Plans
The EHR landscape is changing rapidly, and executives at the two companies with the largest hospital market share, Epic and Oracle Cerner, are in a race to dominate the next iteration of health IT. Both see their companies expanding beyond the hospital-based EHR to power a larger IT infrastructure. Larry Ellison, co-founder and chief technology officer of Oracle, revealed a plan to build technology for the complex healthcare system after acquiring Cerner in June. Oracle plans to modernize Cerner and build it into a complete source of information about an individual's healthcare. He also said the system will be interoperable and have virtual care capabilities and expanded clinical trial capabilities. "We're building a system where the health records, all American citizens' health records, not only exist at the hospital level, but they are all in a unified national healthcare database," Mr. Ellison said during a June 9 presentation. "The national database s...