Dive Brief:
- Cerner Corp. has agreed to pay $106 million to settle claims with a hospital that its financial software did not deliver as promised.
- In April 2012, North Dakota-based Trinity Health told Cerner that it was moving away from its patient accounting solution and certain other IT services provided by the EMR giant, claiming that the solution acquired in 2008 was defective.
- After arbitration between the two parties, Cerner agreed to the settlement. Trinity, meanwhile remains a client of Cerner's clinical solutions.
Dive Insight:
Typically, the big EMR vendors make hospitals sign their life away when they agree to purchase their software. Not only is it difficult to get out of a contract between vendor and hospital, most contracts of this type forbid the hospital from even discussing any problems they have with the vendor. Whatever problems Cerner's patient financial software had, or appeared to have, they must of been a doozy to get a $100 million-plus settlement out of Cerner.