On CEO’s first day, Kansas City’s Cerner rolls out vaccine mandate for all U.S. workers
Cerner Corp., Kansas City’s largest private employer, will require all U.S. employees to become vaccinated, the company announced Friday.
That news came the same day new chief executive David Feinberg started at the healthcare IT company. Cerner also announced that workers would not return to offices until January 10 of next year, much later than originally expected.
A Cerner official cited moderate to high-levels of the Delta variant in different regions as the cause of the delay.
“Although no vaccine prevents all infections, the COVID-19 vaccines have been proven safe and highly effective,” Cerner’s Covid-19 task force wrote to employees Friday. “Vaccination remains the most effective way of reducing the incidence and severity of the virus.”
Cerner is requiring all domestic employees to be fully vaccinated by Dec. 8. That means they must receive both doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, or the single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine by November 24.
The company may make exceptions for medical or sincerely-held religious beliefs. But workers who are approved for such accommodations will face weekly coronavirus tests.
Previously, Cerner officials had decided not to mandate vaccines among staff, unless they were working in client healthcare facilities with vaccine requirements.
“Individuals make decisions about their health for different reasons,” Eva Karp, Cerner Corp.’s senior vice president and chief clinical and patient safety officer, said in August about a vaccine mandate. “It is not an area we want to direct or require.”
Since that time, President Joe Biden has mandated that all large employers require vaccines or implement weekly testing of workers. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is still determining specifics on enforcement of that regulation.
In August, Cerner’s board tapped Feinberg to replace CEO Brent Shafer. A medical doctor, Feinberg was previously the vice president of Google Health. He previously worked at Geisinger Health and UCLA Health.
Feinberg spent his first day on the job meeting with employees with plans to visit healthcare facilities soon. He also made time to don a Kansas City Chiefs jersey.
On his blog, the new CEO said he joined Cerner after building his early career around helping children and families. That led to opportunites at UCLA and Google, where he could impact healthcare and patients around the globe.
“But the greatest impact I can have on healthcare quality and accessibility is at a company where every day we wake up thinking about how to use technology to improve people’s lives,” Feinberg wrote. “ That’s why I chose Cerner.”
This story was originally published October 1, 2021 at 2:53 PM.
