Cerner acquires Siemens HIT business

The big news in HIT circles today was Cerner’s purchase of Siemens’ health IT business for $1.3 billion. Forbes has the most detailed analysis by far, which appears prepared in advance based on the 22 July rumor published by HISTalk at that time. HISTalk’s and their readers’ comments on the announcement conference call today are moderately scathing and worth reading if of interest to you. The takeaway for this Editor is that it was a defensive move for Cerner versus Epic Systems, Athenahealth and Allscripts; they bought out a competitor, bought market share with the acquisition (although how much of it would have fallen to them anyway is a question), gained more of an international foothold plus an inside track to customers eager to move to newer technology. For Siemens, it appears they unloaded a business purchased at too high a price (acquired in 2000 for $2.1 billion!) which increasingly didn’t fit in their plan and was pancake-flat. FierceEMR closes their article on this with an interesting point about the controversial US Department of Defense EHR replacement (presumably to replace AHLTA, TTA 28 Feb): Cerner is teaming with Leidos and Accenture, Epic has teamed up with IBM. Also Neil Versel in Meaningful HIT News. Reader thoughts, especially on the ex-US impact?