Cerner’s investment in Lumeris signals growing role of tech vendors in population health

With a $266 million investment in Lumeris’ parent company, Cerner Corp. is just one of many electronic health record vendors making inroads into population health and preparing for the move to value-based care.

Because of that shift, EHR vendors see the strategic importance of having population health tools in their portfolios so they can help health systems manage populations—and so they can do that alongside their existing platforms, smoothing out what can sometimes be clunky workflows.

“Population health is now becoming a driving force,” said Dr. Charles Saunders, CEO of software firm Integra Connect. “It’s time for the EHR vendors to recognize that they need to serve the needs of health system customers with these solutions.”

Cerner already...