Dive Brief:
- Giant EMR vendor Cerner has won a $170-million, 10-year contract to provide its medications management system to most of the hospitals in Australian state New South Wales, the country's most populous state with 7.5 million residents.
- New South Wales administrators have chosen 28 sites for the initial roll-out of the electronic medication management system, which runs as an add-on to the Cerner EMR.
- Officials say one of the key benefits of the deal is that Cerner will be able to implement the electronic medication management system easily with its EMR, which means that New South Wales won't need to engage in further procurement.
Dive Insight:
While winning a deal that should deliver $170 million over 10 years isn't a monumental deal for a company Cerner's size, it beats going head-to-head with Epic Systems—as it typically does in the US—and potentially losing the battle.
As it integrates the assets from its $1.3-billion acquisition of Siemens Health Services, which include the Soarian EMR, Cerner may gain additional leverage in its pitched battle with Epic. However, where the US is concerned, the market for large enterprise EMRs is fairly saturated; it may be that Cerner has to focus on more international deals like these to expand overall global market share.