Cerner is putting all its cards on the table in its quest for the U.S. Department of Defense's electronic health record contract; the EHR vendor announced Wednesday that it is entering a strategic agreement with Salt Lake City-based provider system Intermountain Healthcare on its bid.
With the help of Intermountain, Cerner said in an announcement that it will provide clinical governance of solutions and workflow to be proposed for the Department of Defense's Healthcare Management System Modernization (DHMSM) initiative.
Intermountain will serve on Cerner's advisory and governance structures, informing the EHR vendor's participation in the project from deployment to clinical systems architecture, according to the announcement.
In addition to Intermountain, the Cerner bid also includes Leidos and Accenture Federal Services.
The single contract, expected to be worth $11 billion over the next decade, is designed to replace all the military's legacy clinical systems, which cover 9.8 million people at an array of healthcare facilities worldwide.
Earlier this month, PwC, Medsphere, DSS Inc. and General Dynamics Information Technology teamed up for a contract bid, with plans to merge "open source" software with commercial applications in its proposal.
In June, IBM and Verona, Wisconsin-based Epic announced their intent to partner for the bid, and in August they added consulting firm Impact Advisors to their team.
Computer Sciences Corp., Allscripts and Hewlett Packard have also announced intentions to throw their hat into the ring.
The Pentagon will accept bids through Oct. 9, with the EHR contract expected to be awarded in the third quarter of 2015.
To learn more:
- read the Cerner announcement