Top News Oracle reports Q3 results: revenue up 7%, adjusted EPS $1.41 versus $1.22, beating… From the earnings call: CEO Safra Catz once again recited the need to “drive Cerner profitability to Oracle standards,” as the growth in that business lagged the company’s overall growth. Catz said that the Cerner business ”is a significant headwind this year,“ but she expects it to return to growth next year. Ellison says that running Cerner on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is less expensive than using a Cerner-dedicated data center in Kansas City; is more secure against cyberattacks; and allows automatic updates every three months. Oracle also announced enhancements to Oracle Health Data Intelligence, formerly Cerner HealthIntent, that include a generative AI service that summarizes patient histories for care managers.

Top News UnitedHealth Group posts target dates for restoring Change Healthcare’s systems following its February… Meanwhile, Oracle’s Larry Ellison turns 80 this year, so should he exit the company vertically or otherwise, the former Cerner business will lose its only cheerleader, and Oracle’s lackluster loyalty could take a big hit.

Top News Masimo considers spinning off its consumer business, which includes personal health and audio… Malaysia’s health ministry says that it will rejuvenate Selayang Hospital’s Cerner EHR, which was the country’s first paperless system, that has deteriorated to the point that the hospital went back to paper.

Top News Atlanta-based teleradiology vendor The Radiology Group pays $3.1 million to settle False Claims… You mentioned Larry’s age and his cheerleading for the former Cerner. They may be re-architecting the former Cerner offering and that will let them come roaring back.” I don’t see that happening, for these reasons: A key reason that Cerner was getting kicked out of hospitals was fallout over its deficient RCM product and its “solution” of rolling out a spiffed-up Soarian offering. I don’t think that most hospitals that moved to Epic did so because of Cerner’s architecture, so Oracle’s whiz-bang technology may not prove to be competitive differentiator. Epic is so far ahead of Cerner in customer KLAS rankings that Oracle Health will never catch up. The DoD business isn’t as lucrative as it sounds since Cerner wasn’t the prime contractor, and the VA may or may not ever get widely enough implemented to unleash the gravy train. Oracle paid way too much for Cerner and expresses near-embarrassment about its latest jewel in every earnings call.

Top News The board of Teladoc Health fires CEO Jason Gorevic after 15 years in… MultiPlan’s president and CEO as of March 1 is former Cerner executive and Oracle Health GM Travis Dalton.

Top NewsSources say that members of the BlackCat ransomware group broke into Change Healthcare’s systems… Lumeris also operates a Medicare Advantage plan through its Essence Healthcare business, which Oracle Health (then Cerner) invested heavily in back in 2018.

Top News Optum shuts down its virtual-first urgent and primary care service, three years after… I’m surprised that the tiny Cerner tail is wagging the massive Oracle dog, especially since the company – other than Larry – mostly complains that the former Cerner business is not profitable enough, while also surely thinking but not saying that Epic is eating its lunch. Upcoming products: a payment solution, Oracle Clinical Digital Assistant (expected to GA in a couple of months), public APIs of unspecified variety (addition FHIR APIs, polished up versions of Cerner’s existing ones, use cases not specified). He says that 50% of Cerner customers have moved to Autonomous Cloud in Oracle Cloud infrastructure.

Following my recent piece on bro culture, a number of people reached out to me… Companies like Epic and Cerner were ready to reap the rewards of economic stimuli such as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and HITECH, which led to Meaningful Use and a record $35 billion flowing to incentivize EHR adoption.