Cerner

Cerner shareholders gathered to discuss the company's fortunes this morning and Wall Street is nervous. Cerner shares are up slightly this morning after an up and down week. Analysts have rated the company a strong buy because of its relatively dominant position in the healthcare IT market at a time when interest in the sector is growing. Skeptics wonder if competition may erode that advantage. Meanwhile, Business 2.0 has named the company to its list of the top 100 fastest growing companies. Article

Shares of Cerner were off this morning, falling $3.79, or 8.15 percent, to $43.26 as Wall Street reacted to the Kansas City-based software company's first quarter numbers, which came out yesterday after the markets closed. The company missed analysts estimates of 27 cents a share, reporting 25 cents. Even though it was a great quarter for Cerner, Wall Street wanted more.

- read this release from Cerner

VISICU is either the steal of the century or highly over-rated, depending on who you ask. The Baltimore-based company, which was founded by two doctors at Johns Hopkins, prices shares for its initial public offering this week. The company plans to offer 6 million shares priced at between $11 and $13. Wall Street is watching, intrigued by a business model that provides hospitals with technology that allows remote access to intensive care services. Forbes columnist Scott Reeves, …

The Michigan-based Trinity Health System says it is temporarily stopping its $315 million electronic medical records implementation. The effort, dubbed "Project Genesis," will eventually upgrade IT services at 23 Trinity-operated hospitals. No word on exactly what is going on, but Trinity says the pause is so the system can study the project's impact on "clinical processes for disease conditions." Says PR guy Kevin DiCola, "we'll be so much better with our implementation by taking a step …

The mood at HIMSS this week was one of barely rational exuberance. America's hospitals are on a building spree, and they are putting new technology infrastructure into their new facilities. They are also in a major round of updating the software they use to run their processes. The exuberance at HIMSS came from the financial success of the major vendors of hospital IT systems like …

HIMSS wraps up in San Diego Thursday morning as 23,500 healthcare tech geeks start to wander home. Most of the action was around the big vertical players like Cerner, Epic, and McKesson, but the tech giants are getting more and more serious about healthcare. Microsoft is introducing products to further collaboration (think instant messaging, plus video, plus Netmeetings) and is working on getting its employees to "eat their own dog food" with Web visits and messaging. Meanwhile, Cisco is …

HIMSS appears to be getting bigger and bigger. There are 23,500 people here and over 800 exhibitors, but segregation is the watchword. The big guys are downstairs in the main exhibit hall, while the smaller companies are in an upstairs gulag. Cerner has perhaps the most interesting approach, taking a huge space in the middle of the hall, but featuring its clients rather than itself. Several other big companies are hosting smaller ones, with Microsoft devoting seemingly all its space to …

> Aetna shares bop as the company reports a 41 percent increase in fourth-quarter profits. Article

> In a column for Reason, Ronald Bailey argues that a case in which a hospital turned off the life support system of an uninsured patient against her will should have gained far more national attention than it did. …

Cerner said late yesterday its revenue has reached the $1 billion mark. The maker of hospital electronic medical records and CPOE systems for hospitals and physician practices said revenues for new bookings were up $386.3 million in the last quarter, an increase of 58 percent. The company adjusted its earnings forecast for next quarter, saying it expects to make 26 cents to 27 cents per share, lower than the 29 cents per share analysts had wanted. Wall Street is not happy about the news. …

As noted in yesterday's trends issue, you can expect the eICU concept to gain momentum this year as the increased availability of the technology makes implementing systems more affordable for providers and systems make their way into other departments. The most well-known player in this emerging field, Baltimore-based VISICU, has been exchanging legal shots with Cerner in a patent dispute over the past six months. Cerner, which sees the obvious market potential in remote monitoring …