Atrium Health to drop Cerner, move to Epic EHR system

Charlotte, North Carolina-based Atrium Health has made its decision to transition from its Cerner system to rival Epic's platform.

The Kansas City Business Journal confirmed the health provider’s plans, having obtained a December 20 email sent to Atrium Health employees informing them of the migration to Epic.

An Epic spokesperson confirmed the move in an email to Healthcare IT News on Friday.

Atrium Health has more than 40 hospitals and more than 900 outpatient clinics. Just this past October, its senior vice president of population health was explaining to HITN how it has customized its Cerner system to incorporate social determinant of health data.

But its decision to trade Cerner for Epic makes it the second health system to do so this month.

Earlier in February, citing a need for a "fully connected network throughout our entire enterprise," the 50-hospital AdventHealth announced it would transition away from its longtime Cerner EHR and replace it with an integrated platform from Epic.

AdventHealth, which was known as Adventist Health System until this past year, is one of the country's biggest non-profit systems and had been a Cerner customer since 2002, said the transition will begin next month and could take three to five years.

The news comes as Cerner has made some personnel moves. It recently named Don Trigg as its president to oversee Clinical EHR and John Peterzalek was named Chief Client and Services Officer.

Trigg, who joined Cerner in 2002, is responsible for leading the long-term vision of Cerner’s product portfolio, key product lines and performance and profitability, and will be responsible for driving the strategy and programmatic efforts involved with Cerner’s platform modernization.

Peterzalek, who joined Cerner in 2003, will assume expanded responsibility for Cerner’s services, consulting, support and hosting, and will continue to oversee worldwide client relationship management and sales.

Cerner did get some good news this month, with the extension of its long-term partnership with Salt Lake City-based Intermountain, whose Marc Probst was recently named the 2020 CHIME-HIMSS CIO of the Year.