Nara Lokesh invites Cerner to become Andhra's technology partner

Kansas City [U.S.A] Feb. 05 (ANI): Andhra Pradesh Information Technology and Communications Minister Nara Lokesh has invited health-tech firm Cerner to become a key technology partner in state's health programmes.

He extended the invitation during a meeting with Cerner's leadership at Cerner's Innovations campus, in Kansas City, Missouri. During the event, the leaders discussed long-term collaboration opportunities between Cerner and the state of Andhra Pradesh.

"The state of Andhra Pradesh has always been at the forefront when it comes to IT adoption across sectors. This has been key for us to realize the chief minister's vision of near real-time governance," Lokesh said.

"A deeper and longer-term relationship with Cerner will allow us to leverage their deep global expertise in healthcare and realize our vision faster. We invite Cerner to set-up operations in the state and become a key technology partner in our health programmes," Lokesh added.

Mike Nill, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Cerner, said the company was looking forward for a long-term relationship with Andhra Pradesh.

"We are impressed by the work of the government of Andhra Pradesh. We believe Cerner can supplement that effort in a significant way in the healthcare sector given our global leadership position in the health IT space. We are looking forward to a long-term relationship with Andhra Pradesh," said Nill.

"We strongly believe that with the right support from the Andhra Pradesh government, we will set-up a center in AP which can work on cutting-edge innovations at the intersection of healthcare and information technology and create significant job opportunities in the state" added Nill.

Andhra Pradesh's health department successfully operates 16 health care programmes through public-private partnerships (PPP) in addition to the primary, secondary and tertiary care that they directly provide through the public health system.

In May 2017, state selected Cerner to establish the Knowledge Command Center (KCC) and develop a framework to measure the effectiveness of their PPP programmes. The KCC also provides a range of analytic services that are allowing the state to be more proactive in managing communicable and non-communicable diseases in its population.

Andhra Pradesh is now planning a statewide rollout of electronic health records and personal health records in addition to creating a SPINE that aggregates information from across various source systems. Cerner has been identified by state's health department as the service provider to establish the SPINE. With this rollout, Andhra Pradesh is looking to realize its triple aim of improving care coordination across care providers, improving quality of care delivery and improving efficiencies in the state's spend on health care. (ANI)