Cerner’s Siemens Acquisition and the Impact on the DoD Bid

One topic I didn’t address in my post covering the $1.3 billion Siemen’s acquisition by Cerner is how this will impact the $11+ billion DoD bid. There’s a lot of discussion about what this acquisition will do. Let me pull out my crystal ball and give you my thoughts.

I personally think that this acquisition will have very little impact on which cluster of companies will win the DoD EHR contract. Some might say that Cerner gains some advantage by having some of the Siemens capabilities on board. Others could argue that Cerner will be distracted with the Siemens acquisition and so they wouldn’t be able to focus on such a large EHR contract. While both of things have some truth, I really don’t think they’ll factor into the DoD decision making.

It seems the consensus out there is people expect Epic to win the DoD contract. If that happens, the Siemens acquisition could become even more interesting for Cerner. It’s a very likely reality that whoever gets the DoD contract will lose some potential clients due to concerns about capacity. If Epic or Cerner get the DoD contract, then it’s possible that these capacity concerns will move them down a notch in people’s EHR selection process. This is a situation where Cerner will benefit from having connections to all of these Soarian customers. As I posted previously, it might be best for Epic not to win the DoD contract.

Are there other ways that Cerner’s acquisition of Siemens impacts the DoD EHR bid?

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

2 Comments

  • Regarding the DoD contract, it is time to put aside the mystique/myth, that competition is always good. This is not an argument over which company takes over the world, it is one of Healthcare, involving people.
    Considering this is being done with public money and for the people, maybe its time for a national effort. The effort to land a man on the moon required a public management agency and companies working together towards a common goal. I would think that requiring the best and brightest across the EHR spectrum would require no less.

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