Cerner argues the contract was unfairly awarded to Epic EHR due to a conflict of interest.
Cerner recently filed a protest against the $62 million Epic EHR implementation contract awarded by the University of Illinois medical center, claiming the bidding process was unfair and potentially influenced by a conflict of interest.
The health IT company filed the protest with the Illinois Chief Procurement Office for Higher Education after losing the implementation contract with UI Medical Center to Epic on September 7.
UI’s Integrated Information Infrastructure project was an effort to overhaul and improve the 20 year-old EHR and billing system previously in place at UI Health.
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Though UI opted to award Epic the EHR implementation contract, Cerner currently holds about 70 percent of UI’s patient EHRs. According to Cerner’s attorney Mara Georges, Epic has a smaller share of the medical center’s records.
Additionally, Cerner offered a $60.5 million bid for the contract – $1.5 million lower than Epic’s $62 million offer, according to Cerner’s seven-page protest. Furthermore, Cerner’s bid included all implementation costs while Epic’s did not.
Cerner also contended the bidding process was unfair because only Epic was permitted to provide a product demonstration.
The health IT company also claimed the Naperville firm hired by UI Health to evaluate its IT needs – Impact Advisors stood to benefit if Epic received the contract. Impact Advisors had worked with Epic in the past on similar implementation projects. Impact Advisors countered this claim, stating it worked with other health IT companies including Cerner and Allscripts in the past.
UI maintains the bidding process was fair and compliant with state procurement policies. Additionally, the university stated it had experienced problems with Cerner products in the past and that Epic had outscored Cerner during its evaluation of the contract proposals.
Furthermore, the contract was awarded through a Request for Proposal instead of a strict competitive bidding process. As a result, technical merit held more weight in the selection process than price. Cerner did not meet the criteria to be considered for a product demonstration.
However, Cerner argued Epic did not comply with the university’s RFP because it failed to include millions of dollars of implementation costs in its proposal. By contrast, Cerner had included design, implementation, training, and support.
In support of its claims, Cerner cited price estimates compiled by Impact Advisors showing that the long-term cost of the project could amount to anywhere between $135 million to $165 million. These estimates put the cost of the project between $73 million to $103 million above Epic’s contract bid.
Impact Advisors stated the analysis was intended as a high-level estimate of the long-term budget.
Additionally, UI and Impact Advisors stated implementation services were bid separately, and that Impact Advisors was not involved in evaluating proposals or making the final EHR selection decision.
“Impact Advisors is not assured of any additional role in this process,” the company said.
“Epic and Cerner both provide the same kinds of systems,” Georges told The News-Gazette. “But when you’re talking about Illinois, a state that has budgetary issues, and a system provided by Epic that costs at least $75 million more without any rationale for using that system, it just doesn’t make any sense.”
However, the university argued they tried to deploy a Cerner ambulatory EHR solution at the medical center and twice and was unsuccessful in both attempts. Georges stated any problems UI encountered while attempting to implement a Cerner solution was the result of UI Health’s inability to upgrade its systems as recommended by Cerner.
The project is on hold until Cerner’s protest claim is resolved. Initially, UI Health intended to finalize the Epic EHR implementation contract by the end of December, but will now likely need to delay the project past this deadline.
Date: Dec 15, 2017