Cerner Celebrates 25 Years Collaborating with Providers to Transform Health and Care in the Middle East

PrintUAE– May 11, 2015 – Twenty-five years ago, Cerner began its collaboration with its first client in the Middle East, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center (KFSH&RC) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.  Today, Cerner is honored to be in use at more than 200 client sites in five countries in the Middle East.

Cerner, a global leader in health care information technology, works together with our clients to implement solutions that help reduce medical errors, improve outcomes and increase quality of care in over 18,000 health care facilities around the world.

Today, Cerner Middle East is used by 48,000 active Cerner Millennium® users, including physicians, nurses and other caregivers who can access, integrate and share information in a single, easy-to-use patient record with unique content and workflows derived from its years of experience in the region. In the Middle East, there are currently over 10 million people with their health information stored in Cerner’s electronic health records.

“We understand that health care is personal and believe that advancing technology will significantly help providers to proactively manage the health of their populations,” said Michael Pomerance, vice president and managing director, Cerner Middle East and Africa. “We are honored to work with our clients to help them with their goal of ensuring the highest standard of care for patients and further connecting them into their respective health communities.”

Cerner Middle East is proud of its clients achieving inpatient Stage 6 on the Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model (EMRAM) by HIMSS Analytics Middle East, which is one of the highest grades of award for their use of clinical IT systems and advanced safety features to enhance the patient care experience. Tracking their progress on a scale of 0 (lowest) to 7 (highest), hospitals can review their implementation and utilization of IT applications.

In 2012, KFSH&RC was the first facility in the Middle East to achieve this prestigious inpatient Stage 6 recognition. Three years later, KFSH&RC marked an additional achievement of HIMSS Stage 6 for ambulatory. It was the first facility throughout  the  Middle East, Europe and Africa to earn this title.

Commenting on this achievement, Dr. Osama Alswailem, chief information officer at KFSH&RC said, “This recognition is the result of a joint effort by KFSH&RC and Cerner to develop best-practice health care solutions in the region, while building on our joint missions to deliver the highest quality of patient care and being at the forefront of electronic health record adoption.”

Currently, 83 percent of all HIMSS 6 inpatient sites in the Middle East are Cerner clients.

“We started our client collaborations with a single laboratory solution, moved to a fully integrated electronic health system and are currently working on the next stage, which is population health management. We thank our clients, users, partners and staff for their unwavering dedication and efforts to support our pursuit of impacting health care delivery and the health of our communities. We are honored to celebrate their accomplishments over the past 25 years and look forward to the next 25 and beyond,” said Pomerance.

Cerner Middle East hosted a 25th anniversary gala dinner for more than 200 staff and their families on May 7 in Dubai and plans to celebrate with its clients at the 2015 Middle East Regional User Group, which will take place in Dubai, UAE, on June 1-2.