Cerner MD resigns

The managing director of Cerner Europe has resigned to pursue “international opportunities” and is leaving the company this Friday.

Alan Fowles has been with the company for almost 11 years and oversaw the very first Cerner NHS installations.

In a statement to EHealth Insider, the company said Fowles has decided to leave Cerner in order to pursue “new international opportunities”.

“He has been at Cerner for over a decade and played a key role in our significant growth.

"We would like to express our thanks to Alan for all of his hard work and commitment and wish him the very best for the future.”

An announcement is expected soon regarding a replacement. In other news from Cerner, the company held the four-day Cerner Health Conference in Kansas last week, and nearly 150 NHS staff attended the event.

A Cerner spokesman said the company paid some travel and accommodation bills for staff who were speaking or through "reference credits" which are given to trusts that help develop or promote Cerner technology.

He said most trusts sent a couple of staff members and a few sent up to 12 and the majority funded their own delegates.

The Sunday Times reported that Barts Health NHS Trust sent ten staff, with flights and accommodation paid for under Cerner's credit scheme.

A spokesperson for Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust told EHI the trust sent 13 clinicians to the conference, paid for by the trust.

Other trusts that reportedly sent delegates include Croydon Health Services NHS Trust, South London Healthcare NHS Trust and Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

A spokesperson for North Bristol NHS Trust said no-one from the trust attended.

Cerner announced at the conference that it will embed Nuance's cloud-based medical voice recognition into its full portfolio of mobile electronic patient record systems, including PowerChart.