With Cerner acquisition, Oracle hopes to revolutionize healthcare
Summary
The company officially completed the acquisition of Cerner, a major supplier of health information systems, with a star-studded event filled with speeches from Oracle’s leader, Larry Ellison, as well as appearances by celebrities like Tony Blair, the former prime minister of Great Britain. Cerner is one of the oldest companies to develop electronic medical records, offering systems that handle the data storage chores for doctors’ offices, clinics and hospitals. Ellison illustrated this opportunity with the idea of putting RFID tags on packages to help track drugs, while deploying a blockchain that will authenticate the supply to ensure quality. “Our platform is an open system, and it allows medical professionals to go ahead and build in there.” Ellison noted that some of the new features that will emerge after the merger are based on some early work that Oracle did for the U.S. government during the COVID-19 pandemic. There weren’t a statistically significant number of adverse reactions, and this allowed U.S. regulators to say: alright, pregnant women can now safely take these vaccines.” Throughout the discussion, Ellison and many of the Oracle executives highlighted how the company is rethinking its role.
