October 18, 2005

 

The Centre Hospitalier Universitaire of Saint Etienne, France, has chosen Cerner Corp. to provide health care information technology to four hospitals in southeastern France

 

The North Kansas City-based company (Nasdaq: CERN) said in a written release Tuesday that it will install its Cerner Millennium software at each hospital to improve quality, safety and efficiency.

Financial terms weren't disclosed.

In September, Cerner signed a contract with Fujitsu Services Ltd. as part of a $1.6 billion project to computerize medical records in southern England for the United Kingdom's National Health Service. Financial terms of Cerner's contract weren't disclosed, but CFO Marc Naughton said in July that the company expects revenue of 25 percent to 30 percent of the project's total cost -- or $400 million to $480 million.

In August, Cerner won another international contract, when the U.S. Department of Defense signed a 10-year agreement to use Cerner Millennium PathNet laboratory information system in the military heath system's more than 100 hospitals and clinics around the world. That deal was valued at $51 million.

Cerner is in the running to be the vendor for a new medical records system at the University of Kansas Medical Center, which is expected to cost around $40 million.

With health care systems around the world increasingly embracing electronic medical records, Cerner's stock hit a 52-week high of $89.26 on Tuesday. A year earlier, on Oct. 18, 2004, the stock closed at $46.04.

Cerner posted $926.4 million in revenue last year, and the consensus estimate of analysts with Thomson First Call is for $1.13 billion in 2005 revenue.

Cerner ranks No. 11 on the Kansas City Business Journal's list of area public companies