Oracle Reportedly Lays Off Hundreds of Cerner Healthcare Employees

Oracle has reportedly laid off hundreds of employees and pulled job offers for its Cerner healthcare unit, according to reporting from Computerworld.

Oracle acquired EHR vendor Cerner for approximately $28.3 billion in December 2021.

According to a report by Insider, the layoffs are a result of a deal between Cerner and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).  

In April, VA said it was renegotiating its contract with Cerner due to several issues with the system that impacted patient safety.

The reported news of Cerner layoffs comes days after Oracle announced its fourth quarter 2023 results, with quarterly revenue up 17 percent yearly and profit up 24 percent. Cloud revenue for the quarter increased 54 percent to $4.4 billion.

Oracle executives discussed adding AI and automation features to its supply chain management (SCM) and human resource management (HCM) applications during its earnings call. 

Additionally, at the beginning of June, Oracle participated in the Series C funding round for Cohere, a generative AI startup with technology for copywriting and support search and summarization capabilities.

The company raised $270 million in the funding round. The business has since been valued at about $2.2 billion.

Oracle executives noted that they plan to modify these new applications for use in the healthcare sector.

"When we bought Cerner, we decided that we were going to take our human capital management (HCM) system… [and] add features specifically for the healthcare industry," Larry Ellison, Oracle co-founder and CTO, told analysts on the earnings call.

While he noted that workforce management within the healthcare sector is "very complex," Cerner's acquisition has allowed Oracle to further invest across the entire healthcare ecosystem, Ellison added.