A Tribute to Neal Patterson, Co-Founder of Cerner and LIS Pioneer

Neal Patterson, co-founder and CEO of Cerner Corp, died last Sunday at age 67. The company announced that Patterson had experienced unexpected complications from a soft-tissue tumor for which he had been treated previously (see:A profound loss: Cerner CEO Neal Patterson dies from cancer at age 67). The company has named Cerner vice-chairman and co-founder Cliff Illig as chairman and interim CEO. Neal had surprised a crowd of about 15,000 at the November 2016 Cerner Health Conference by publicly revealing his health problems (see:Cerner co-founder Neal Patterson surprises crowd at health conference). Cerner was founded in 1979 by Neal Patterson, Paul Gorup, and Cliff Illig, who were previously colleagues at Arthur Andersen (see:Cerner). Its original name was PGI& Associates (Patterson, Group, and Illig) but was renamed Cerner in 1984 when it launched its first LIS, PathNet. The nameCerner is derived from the Latin word"to discern." Neal and Cliff built a global empire. As of April 2015, Cerner products were in use in approximately 18,000 facilities around the world and the company had about 22,000 employees globally (see:Cerner). I had started a pathology informatics conference in Ann Arbor calledAutomated Information Management in the Clinical Labs (AIMCL) in June, 1983, and Cerner (and Neal) first participated as a vendor in June, 1984. AIMCL was based in Ann Arbor for 21 years and then moved to Las Vegas for ten more years. In 201...
Source: Lab Soft News - Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Tags: Electronic Health Record (EHR) Healthcare Business Healthcare Information Technology LIS Definitions and Strategy LIS Vendor News Pathology Informatics Source Type: blogs