Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics in Kansas City, the region's pediatric healthcare centers, have selected Cerner Corp. as its partner for clinical information systems. Cerner said it will unify the hospital's nursing, allied health, physician, emergency, intensive care, radiology, pharmacy, imaging, surgery and laboratory departments through the use of electronic health records.

Cerner's Millennium will provide Children's Mercy with pediatric-specific content and capabilities throughout the hospital. Millennium is the foundation on which the infrastructure for unified clinical, financial and operational systems stands. The common architecture improves outcomes by allowing healthcare organizations to tightly align clinical and business functions.

According to Cerner, Children's Mercy plans to work collaboratively with Cerner for analysis and performance measurement of several core clinical pediatric conditions. Children's Mercy will join a group of Cerner's client partners that will utilize Cerner's data warehouse and health intelligence system to measure clinical target performance and process improvement objectives.

The strategic agreement was signed in the second quarter of 2004.