The Department of Defense (DoD) has awarded a $50.7 million sole source data hosting add-on to its $4.3 billion electronic health record contract, known as the Defense Healthcare Management Systems Modernization EHR, to Cerner, according to an article in FCW; Politico first reported the news.
Other bidders on the data hosting contract--including IBM, Computer Services Corp., Amazon and General Dynamics--all objected to Cerner's sole source award. According to documents approved by the DoD, the data from the system needs to be hosted in Cerner's data centers to "enable the full functionality" of the new EHR system. What's more, the DoD ruled that allowing a third party access to Cerner's proprietary system would have a negative financial impact on the Kansas City, Missouri-based company. Article