EHR Rollout Gone Wrong In Rural Kansas

Dispute between Cerner and Girard Medical Center goes to arbitration

One year after Cerner abandoned its EHR implementation project at Girard Medical Center, the two don't appear to be any closer to a settlement of their legal struggle.

While both Girard, a 35-bed hospital in Girard, Kan., and Cerner have declined to comment on the pending litigation, court documents provide a detailed account of the conflict between the hospital and vendor over the past two years.

According to a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Mo., Girard Medical Center, a rural Kansas hospital serving primarily uninsured patients and the elderly, signed a series of agreements in September 2010 for the purchase of an all in-one electronic health record system with Cerner, a Kansas City, Mo.-based healthcare information technology corporation.