The Insider reported that software firm Oracle has laid off hundreds of employees, rescinded job offers, and cut back open positions within its health unit. The move comes amid thousands of cuts in corporate America as companies wrestle with elevated inflation levels and rising interest rates. The tech giant’s layoffs reportedly affect its Cerner division. The layoffs will likely result from Cerner’s troubled work with the Department of Veterans Affairs, which hired the company to replace its homemade medical records system with Cerner’s technology.
According to the report, the company reportedly paused raises and promotions and laid off workers in departments such as marketing, engineering, accounting, and legal. A former employee told the publication that the layoffs also affected Cerner’s leadership team. Those who were let go are slated to receive severance pay of four weeks, one additional week for every year of service, and a payout of vacation days.
The company said the layoffs were necessary to help reduce costs and improve business efficiency. The company also said it was evaluating opportunities for growth in its healthcare business. Oracle did not provide details on the number of people affected by the layoffs or the exact nature of the eliminated jobs. Still, it said the move aligned with its commitment to “address current and future healthcare needs.”
The cloud major is developing a national database to store patient data, and chairman and chief executive officer Larry Ellison have promised that patient information would be anonymized until individuals grant permission to share their information with third parties. The company is also working on a patient engagement system that will allow doctors and patients to communicate using mobile devices such as smartphones. The system will also integrate with users’ wearable medical tracking devices to upload routine health data to the database.
In addition to a health database, Oracle’s healthcare offerings include digital health services, medical device technology, and software for electronic medical records. Last year, the company bought Cerner, a maker of electronic medical records management systems, for $28.3 billion, its biggest-ever deal, to strengthen its presence in the healthcare market. The company aims to help medical professionals spend more time treating their patients and less on administrative tasks such as entering test results into a computer. It is also working on a voice-enabled interface that allows physicians to enter patient data by talking to them instead of typing. This could free up one to two hours of physician time per day, according to a study by the Mayo Clinic. The firm plans to expand its healthcare business internationally. The acquisition of Cerner also helps to position it to serve larger healthcare markets such as those in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. It will allow it to better compete with rivals such as Salesforce, which has a significant presence in the healthcare space.
