Cerner takes part in two health care initiatives

Cerner Corp. on Thursday announced participation in two programs that aim to improve health by using data to educate patients and to help health care professionals determine what care works best.

A Cerner representative is in Washington to participate in a Sync for Science summit at the White House. The event is part of an ongoing national “precision medicine initiative” that intends to ask 1 million Americans to volunteer their own health data for research.

The North Kansas City-based company, whose business is the digitization of health care records, has been tapped to pilot an “open, standardized application program interface” that will allow a sharing of electronic health records.

David McCallie, senior vice president of medical informatics at Cerner, emphasized that the data is for aggregate research purposes. The initiative aims to mine the data to learn what works best to treat diseases and other health conditions.

Separately, Cerner and the University of Kansas Hospital said they are collaborating to extend Cerner’s health management technology to rural Kansas communities.

The Cerner case management software uses algorithms to identify patients who can benefit from special case management and get them more involved in managing their care.

Robert Moser, director of the Kansas Heart and Stroke Collaborative of the University of Kansas Hospital, said heart disease and stroke patients in rural communities need education and care coordination to improve their health outcomes.

This story was originally published February 25, 2016 at 10:29 AM with the headline "Cerner takes part in two health care initiatives."