News roundup: NHS England to be abolished, absorbed into UK DHSC, while IT glitch shorts 5,200 from screenings; Veradigm *finally* files 2022 financials (updated), VA-Oracle EHR now promises 13 installs in 2026

March 19, 2025 | by

The semi-independent entity of NHS England is scheduled to be absorbed by the UK Government within two years. Formed in 2012 under the David Cameron-led Government, NHS England (formally the NHS Commissioning Board) with the enactment of the 2012 Health and Social Care Act reforms, will now be directly controlled by the Department of Health and Social Care under the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Wes Streeting, who said, “We need more doers and fewer checkers, which is why I’m devolving resources and responsibilities to the NHS frontline.” The intent, according to Prime Minister Starmer’s announcement on 13 March, is to institute a centralized model that eliminates over-regulation, duplication, and slashes the £200 billion it currently takes to operate semi-independently. 

NHS England staff were warned of cuts up to 50%, and incoming chair Dr. Penny Dash, said in an agency statement that she will “work to bring together NHS England and DHSC to reduce duplication and streamline functions.” NHS England has doubled staff since 2010 when it peaked in user satisfaction and waiting times, declining ever since. Healthcare IT News

NHS England has a guide here on ‘what you need to know’ about the two-year abolishment announcement and key points from both the Starmer and Streeting speeches along with answers to MPs’ questions. Notably, “integrated care boards (ICBs) and provider trusts have been told to make further cuts, with ICBs asked to make 50 per cent reductions in their running costs by Q3 2025/26 and trusts being told to cut their “corporate services” budgets back to pre-pandemic levels.” The greatest concerns center around cuts to frontline staff though budgets are for now in place.

Separately, an IT glitch in NHS England’s GP patient registrations meant that 5,261 people weren’t notified of routine screenings. When GP practices did not fully complete patient registrations, the IT admin error meant their information was not passed into NHS screening program systems. Thus the reminders were not sent out for routine bowel, breast and cervical cancer, and abdominal aortic aneurysm screenings. This apparently started in 2008 but wasn’t identified till last year. It’s estimated that 10 patients may have died since that time. Digital Health UK

Veradigm files its delayed 2022 financials, at long last–and still unaudited. These were the infamous financials that delisted the company from Nasdaq due to a software problem that was reported that year. It made subsequent years non-auditable though the company reported profit on its complex operations. Veradigm stock fell, it failed to sell itself for the estimated $1 billion last year to one of the five most interested bidders [TTA 31 Jan], and now is essentially controlled by an activist investor, Kent Lake PR LLC, which has added four independent board directors [TTA 22 Feb]. The 2022 financials plus restatements of 2021 and 2020 financials were filed in their SEC Form 10-K. 2022’s net loss was $86.4 million, 2021’s net income was $139.7 million, and 2020’s was $696 million. Non-GAAP income per share was for the respective years ($0.77), $1.01, and $4.37. Now for 2023 and 2024….  Veradigm release is a long read

Updated: Healthcare Dive confirmed Veradigm’s flat revenue projection for 2025. Two new board directors and a chairman were appointed: Jonathan Sacks, a partner at Stonehill Capital Management, and Bruce Felt, CFO at cloud software company Domo on the board, and Lou Silverman as chairman. Mr. Silverman joined the board last month and replaces Greg Garrison, who last month announced his retirement after the 2022 financials were filed. Under the agreement with investor Kent Lake PR LLC, all had to be approved by them [TTA 22 Feb].

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) will roll out the Oracle EHR to a planned total of 13 sites in 2026. The announcement last week added nine sites to the previously announced four sites in Michigan. The additional nine will be announced later this year. VA also announced that the complete deployment and presumed replacement of VistA will be as early as 2031. On Oracle’s part, the EHR is being moved to the cloud (Oracle Cloud Infrastructure/OCI) with the first phase completed this year and full migration by end of 2026. 

Two statements closing the VA’s release are interesting (Editor’s emphasis in bold); interpreting them, deployments will be regionally implemented and procedures standardized for each, versus the extremely customized approach taken with the first six deployments:

VA is pursuing a market-based approach to site selection for its deployments going forward. This will enable the department to scale up the number of concurrent deployments, while also enabling staff to work as efficiently as possible. 

VA will adopt a standard baseline of products, workflows, and integrations aligned with subject-matter-expert recommendations. The standardized national baseline will ensure successful Federal EHR implementation, accelerate deployments, simplify decision-making, and support future optimizations.

Healthcare IT News, TTA 26 Feb on the most recent Congressional hearings

Oracle’s Q4/FY 23 earnings push Cerner to background, stock price soars on AI deals; 81% of VA clinicals really can’t stand Cerner

June 13, 2024 | by

Oracle keeps blue side up but disappoints Mr. Market, Cerner results now fall into the background as stock price soars despite misses. Oracle kept it upbeat in reporting its Q4 and FY2023 results this past Tuesday 11 June, and it paid off.

  • Its Q4 revenue of $14.3 billion was up 3%, with Q4 GAAP earnings per share was $1.11 while non-GAAP (adjusted) earnings per share was $1.63.
  • FY23 revenue totaled $53.0 billion, up 6%, with GAAP earnings per share at $3.71, while non-GAAP earnings per share was $5.56. 

Overall results were disappointing for Wall Street analysts. The blue side is that the stock has surged big time with a YTD high yesterday, closing above $140. The secret sauce? New AI-related contracts and demand for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. On the call and in the release Oracle CEO Safra Catz announced new cloud sales to Google and Microsoft for OpenAI and ChatGPT. OpenAI will run deep learning and AI workloads on Oracle Cloud. Oracle also sold 30 contracts worth $12 billion in Q4.

The surprise on the call for this Editor? The Cerner business will no longer be identified and broken out, which is major league unusual for a specific, large product line. From HIStalk News 6/12/24: CEO Safra Catz said, “I will no longer be breaking out the Cerner business in my results. And even though it will begin to grow modestly throughout the year in both revenue and operating margins, it’s not necessary to break it out anymore because it is now operating in a growth mode.” A way of concealing ongoing bad news? Major hat tip to HIStalk on the earnings call summary, Investors Business Daily, Oracle earnings release

Not that many at the VA, MHS, or elsewhere actually like Cerner. An internal and unpublished survey for the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA) by KLAS, obtained by Bloomberg News, reported results for Oracle Cerner, and they were close to disastrous. On the metric “Users who feel the health software enables “high-quality care”, here were the results on positive answers by the doctors, nurses, and other users of Oracle’s EHR:

  • 19% for VA Oracle Cerner
  • 30% for DOD Oracle Cerner (MHS–Ed.)
  • 49% Average US Oracle Cerner
  • 71% Average Epic Systems Customer

That means that 81% of VA users, in the five facilities and offsite center where it’s been deployed, now for over a year and with consultants over it like paint on a brand new car, believe the Oracle Cerner system does not do Job #1 of healthcare–enabling high-quality healthcare. “There is a trend toward improvement, however, most users still indicate a negative experience,” according to VA researchers quoted in the report.

The other big surprise is that 70% of MHS users believe exactly the same. MHS is the ‘success story’ implementation, jointly with Leidos, and now complete. (Ken Glueck, please take note)

KLAS also contrasted this to their existing information for US EHR users. 49% of Cerner US users believe it facilitates high-quality care–contrasting unfavorably with 71% of Epic customers. However, these numbers are not comparable to either the VA or MHS as most hospital systems have been in place for years/decades, and have had abundant time to shape them against system needs plus work out the inevitable ‘bugs’. But the performance of Cerner versus Epic on this metric translates to preference in the small world of healthcare. 

Drilling down into the survey:

  • About 22% of VA respondents said their training on the new system was helpful
  • About 45% said they had received communication about why the VA was moving to the new EHR

The survey was conducted in March-April 2024 as part of VA’s ongoing evaluation of the Oracle Cerner EHR. Responders were 2,000 Cerner EHR users, with a 25% response rate of those solicited. The report was for VA leadership and for Congress. In a response to Bloomberg, Terrence Hayes, press secretary for the VA, said “That’s why we conduct surveys like this: to better understand the experience of our providers in the field, so we can make the EHR better for staff and veterans alike.”

Seema Verma has a long and troubled row to hoe to make this work for VA, MHS, and all Cerner users. Nowhere to go but up. Becker’s

Wednesday news roundup: Oracle scrutinizing outside vendors, cloud change coming for Cerner EHRs, audio-only telehealth can continue after PHE–HHS, Proximie connected surgery raises $80M (UK)

June 15, 2022 | by

Oracle moving quickly to change Cerner’s outside vendors to Oracle products and move their EHRs to Oracle cloud services. Will this fly with health systems and providers? An immediate change that will resonate with current Cerner EHR users is Oracle’s immediate moves to replace Cerner’s current third-party vendors with Oracle services and technology. So if your Cerner EHR has something you like but it comes from a third-party vendor, enjoy it while you can. Do expect that Oracle will be selling other products like Enterprise Resource Planning Cloud, administrative systems, and supply chain into providers and health systems–hard. From the earnings call, CEO Safra Katz: “We remain confident in our ability to grow Cerner’s top line and bottom line faster than they were able to do so on their own as these changes are implemented.”

The major and quickest move specified in yesterday’s Oracle earnings call (transcript) will be to move Cerner to OCI–Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. Further down into Mr. Katz’s remarks, Cerner is expected to account for 20 points of their cloud growth in Q1 2023 (starting 1 June 2022). When Cerner has added $15.8 billion of debt to the balance sheets, it’s to be expected.  HISTalk, Becker’s

What happens to audio-only telehealth at the end of the pandemic Public Health Emergency (PHE)? HHS has just issued guidance that will permit telehealth, including audio-only, services to continue. According to the HHS release, “HIPAA covered entities can use remote communication technologies to provide telehealth services, including audio-only services, in compliance with the HIPAA Privacy Rule. ” There are specific requirements such as how the HIPAA Security Rule applies to electronic media and electronic protected health information (ePHI). The full guidance is here.

UK surgical connectivity platform Proximie raises $80 million. London-based Proximie, a system that connects surgeries with pre-operative patient information, collaborative tools, and post-operative content distribution, completed a Series C with participation from Emerson Collective – the impact investor founded by Laurene Powell Jobs, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, British Patient Capital, Mubadala Investment Company, and the Minderoo Foundation, plus previous investors. The raise is unusually large (in this Editor’s opinion) for the UK, particularly at this uncertain time. Proximie has supported over 13,000 surgeries in 100 countries, contracts with over 35 major medical device companies such as Stryker and Abbott, and has been used in 500 hospitals across 50 countries. The company is a partner with Teladoc and Vodafone Business.  Release.