Item 1. Business.
Overview
Cerner Corporation started doing business as a Missouri corporation in 1980 and was merged into a Delaware corporation in 1986. Unless the context otherwise requires, references in this report to "Cerner," the "Company," "we," "us" or "our" mean Cerner Corporation and its subsidiaries.
Our corporate world headquarters is located in a Company-owned office park in North Kansas City, Missouri, with our principal place of business located at 2800 Rockcreek Parkway, North Kansas City, Missouri 64117. Our telephone number is 816.221.1024. Our Web site, which we use to communicate important business information, can be accessed at: www.cerner.com. We make our annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K and all amendments to those reports available free of charge on or through this Web site as soon as reasonably practicable after such material is electronically filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"). We do not intend for information contained in our website to be part of this annual report on Form 10-K.
Cerner is a leading supplier of health care information technology ("HCIT") solutions and tech-enabled services. Our mission is to relentlessly seek breakthrough innovation that will shape health care of tomorrow. We offer a wide range of intelligent solutions and tech-enabled services that support the clinical, financial and operational needs of organizations of all sizes. Cerner® solutions and services help clinicians make care decisions and assist organizations in managing the health of their populations. The Company also offers integrated clinical and financial systems to help manage day-to-day revenue functions, as well as a wide range of services to support clinical, financial and operational needs.
Cerner solutions are offered on the unified Cerner Millennium® architecture and on the HealtheIntent® cloud-based platform. Cerner Millennium is a person-centric computing framework, which includes integrated clinical, financial and management information systems. This architecture allows providers to securely access an individual's electronic health record ("EHR") at the point of care, and it organizes and proactively delivers information to meet the specific needs of physicians, nurses, laboratory technicians, pharmacists, front- and back-office professionals and consumers. Our HealtheIntent platform is a cloud-based platform designed to scale at a population level while facilitating health and care at a person and provider level. On the HealtheIntent platform, we offer solutions that aggregate, transform and reconcile data across the continuum of care, enabling key stakeholders to manage the health of populations, improve outcomes and lower costs. Cerner also has an EHR agnostic platform, CareAware®, that facilitates connectivity of health care devices to EHRs, allowing for more efficient and effective care.
On February 2, 2015, Cerner acquired the Health Services business from Siemens AG, which offered a portfolio of enterprise-level clinical and financial health care information technology solutions, as well as departmental, connectivity, population health, and care coordination solutions globally.
We offer a broad range of tech-enabled services, including implementation and training, remote hosting, operational management services, revenue cycle services, support and maintenance, health care data analysis, clinical process optimization, transaction processing, employer health centers, employee wellness programs and third-party administrator services for employer-based health plans.
In addition to software and services, we offer a wide range of complementary hardware and devices, both directly from Cerner and as a reseller for third parties.
The following table presents consolidated revenues by our business models and by segment, as a percentage of total revenues:
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For the Years Ended
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2019
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2018
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2017
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Revenues by Business Models
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Licensed software
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12
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%
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11
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%
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12
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%
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Technology resale
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4
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%
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5
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%
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5
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%
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Subscriptions
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6
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%
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6
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%
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9
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%
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Professional services
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35
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%
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34
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%
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31
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%
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Managed services
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21
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%
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21
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%
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21
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%
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Support and maintenance
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20
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%
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21
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%
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20
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%
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Reimbursed travel
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2
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%
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2
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%
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2
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%
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100
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%
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100
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%
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100
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%
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Revenues by Segment
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Domestic
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89
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%
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88
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%
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89
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%
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International
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11
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%
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12
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%
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11
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%
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100
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%
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100
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%
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100
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%
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A description of our business models is as follows:
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Licensed software - We develop and license intellectual property ("IP") (our architectures, application software, executable and referential knowledge, data and algorithms) to our clients. Our licensed software business model includes revenues from IP delivered via perpetual license and software as a service, where functionality is delivered via "the cloud".
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Technology resale - We bundle licensed software with other companies' IP in the form of sublicenses to create complete technology solutions for our clients. We also resell bundled computer equipment (hardware) from technology companies to create a completely functional system. Additionally, we resell medical devices for a growing list of medical device companies.
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Subscriptions - Another method by which we provide IP is on a time-based subscription model that has a periodic usage charge. This is the primary way we package and provide medical knowledge, which changes frequently based on research and can be updated independently from the software in which it is embedded. Also included in this category of revenue is our Electronic Data Interchange ("EDI") transaction revenue. EDI is the electronic transfer of data between health care providers and payers.
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Professional services - We provide a wide range of professional services to assist our clients in the implementation of our information systems in their organizations. These services are in the form of project management, technical and application expertise, clinical process optimization, regulatory consulting and education and training of our clients' workforce to assist in the design and implementation of our systems. This business model also includes certain outsourcing services utilized by health care organizations.
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Managed services - Our managed services business model includes revenues from remote hosting, application management services, operational management services, and disaster recovery. Remote hosting is the largest of these offerings, and it involves Cerner buying the necessary equipment, installing it in one of our data centers, and operating the entire system on the client's behalf.
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Support and maintenance - This business model is comprised of the ongoing support and maintenance services we provide our clients. Almost all of our clients contract for these services. Clients with support contracts get 24x7 access to our immediate response center, which serves as our "emergency room," as well as access to our SolutionWorks organization for less urgent issues. In addition, our clients' support payments give them ongoing access to the latest releases of our IP. We also provide support for sublicensed software and maintenance for third party hardware.
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Reimbursed travel - Includes reimbursable out-of-pocket expenses (primarily travel) incurred in connection with our client service activities.
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Health Care and Health Care IT Industry
There are several major forces shaping health care worldwide.
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Rising Health Care Costs - Health care costs continue to rise above the rate of inflation, with total health care expenditures increasing 4.6% to $3.6 trillion in 2018, representing 18% of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product ("GDP"). Health expenditures are expected to grow at approximately 5% over the next decade, which would bring them to nearly 20% of GDP. Similar growth trends exist in most major non-U.S. markets as well. We believe this trajectory is unsustainable and that health care IT can play an important role in facilitating a shift from a high-cost health care system that incents volume to a proactive system that incents health, quality and efficiency.
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Industry Consolidation - The number of health care providers turning to mergers, acquisitions and partnerships has surged. On a 15-year basis the percentage of hospitals functioning under a health system rather than operating independently increased from approximately 50% to approximately 65%. Today, over 70% of hospitals are operating as part of a health system rather than independently. This consolidation trend has also included the outpatient setting as health systems are seeking to build out health networks within defined Metropolitan Statistical Areas ("MSAs").
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Evolving Reimbursement - With the full enactment of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ("ACA"), Medicaid expansion in more than three-quarters of all states, and the aging population driving Medicare growth, the government is playing an increasingly material role in U.S. health care economics. The implications for providers include increased regulatory requirements for payment at less favorable terms than commercial payers. This reality has exacerbated an already tough margin profile and is expected to be the new normal for the years to come. Provider organizations are also dealing with an ongoing shift to value-based reimbursement models through programs like the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act ("MACRA") and Bundled Payment Care Initiative, which change the way that Medicare rewards clinicians for value over volume. These reforms, over time, could materially change provider economics.
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Consumer Expectations - Increased out-of-pocket expense and technology utilization outside health care have contributed to rising consumer expectations on cost, convenience and service. This growing consumerism has increased the political focus on rising drug prices, surprise medical bills, and escalating premiums, highlighting the importance of having comprehensive strategies for engaging consumers.
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Cognitive Computing - Today, health care is principally digitized across the core clinical, operational and financial settings. However, while workflows have been digitized, business processes remain largely unautomated and the industry has yet to realize the benefits of digitization achieved in other industries. Cognitive computing represents a meaningful opportunity to leverage the digitization that now exists in health care to improve efficiency and quality, and we believe Cerner is well positioned to play a key role in helping the health care industry achieve this potential.
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For the core provider market, many of these forces are contributing to an overall challenging macro environment. Providers are simultaneously seeking to grow key service lines, drive operational efficiencies to make money at Medicare rates, and build out the competencies required to take and effectively manage risk and participate in value-based reimbursement models. Information technology is seen as an enabler of these efforts, which represents an opportunity for Cerner. At the same time, the low-margin nature of provider businesses can make it difficult to fund required investment, making it important for solutions and services to have a clear return on investment.
Cerner Vision and Growth Strategy
Throughout our history, Cerner has focused on creating innovation at the intersection of health care and information technology. Our vision has long been to create a Health Network Architecture ("HNA") for providers of care in every community. HNA has four core pillars: automate the care process; connect the person; structure, store and study the data; and then 'close the loop' by pushing analytic insights back into the care process. The base digitization that now exists in health care is foundational to achieving this vision, and we believe it can be achieved in the decade to come.
Our framework for growth as we work towards achieving our long-term vision includes three core areas.
First, we are focused on delivering in our core market, including executing effectively on our large U.S. federal contracts, continuing to enhance key solution areas, such as revenue cycle, that are important to existing clients and represent revenue
growth opportunities, and aligning with our provider clients to help them increase revenue in key service lines, tackle margin compression and optimize their reimbursement dollars. In addition, we are investing in platform modernization, with a focus on delivering a software as a service platform that we expect to lower total cost of ownership, improve clinician experience and patient outcomes, enable clients to accelerate adoption of new functionality, and better leverage third-party innovations. These efforts, in collaboration with Amazon Web Services, can differentiate Cerner and position our installed client base to better manage the forces of change playing out in health care.
Second, we are continuing work towards advancing the HNA vision that has driven Cerner almost since its inception. We believe that through the creation of a cohesive architecture for health care, the walls between care centers will become transparent as information travels seamlessly between care settings. Data collected at one setting will be available to others across the country, ensuring every individual in every part of the care process is connected to the right knowledge, resources and persons at the appropriate time and place. We believe the coming decade is the window when the confluence of technology, data liquidity and business model shifts can make this vision a reality. Health systems are increasingly building network strategies within specific MSAs to enhance contracting power, increase patient stickiness and move closer to the premium dollar. Cerner has an opportunity to become a strategic partner and assist with network design, provide services in areas such as cybersecurity and operational reporting, and improve performance under value-based contracting. Cerner's HealtheIntent platform was purpose-built as a cloud-based, EHR-agnostic platform that enables these efforts. HealtheIntent is also foundational to our offerings in other areas that represent growth opportunities for Cerner. These include provider market offerings, such long-term care, home care and hospice, rehabilitation, behavioral health, community care, care team communications, and health systems operations, as well as consumer and employer offerings.
Third, Cerner has an opportunity to grow by becoming a trusted source of curated health data. This opportunity is also supported by our HealtheIntent platform. While this opportunity is nascent, Cerner has natural points of differentiation, including our proximity to the data given that our technology assets are in place in more than a quarter of U.S. health care facilities, and our proven ability to aggregate and normalize multiple sources of data through our HealtheIntent platform, which contains data from more than 249 million longitudinal records.
The early returns have been positive. We have made progress in the pharma and life sciences space with our HealtheDataLabsSM offering and our collaboration with the Duke Clinical Research Institute, which is focused on creating opportunities for clinical trial participation within Cerner's client base. There also is good traction in our HealtheHistorySM business, which provides record retrieval for life insurance, legal and other administrative use cases.
Cerner expects to build on this early success and continue creating information-based solutions that reinvent traditional health care businesses, allow our customers to better serve their markets and ultimately change lives. We believe the data space not only represents a material addressable market beyond Cerner's traditional provider base, but that it is also consistent with, and a compelling advancement of, the vision of personalized medicine that animated the original thinking around HNA.
Importantly, Cerner's health data strategy is based on curating data from a willing and engaged network of providers with an emphasis on clear boundaries around the usage of patient data and based on clearly defined use cases with clarity and transparency around data rights.
In summary, we believe Cerner's core value proposition remains strong and there is ample opportunity to grow through the areas discussed above. As Cerner drives these areas of growth, we expect a strong and dynamic competitive landscape, ranging from startups to mega-cap companies that are attracted to the substantial addressable markets across health care. Success will require entrepreneurial scale. We will have to move faster and be nimbler than the mega-caps, while also leveraging our advantages of size and experience that venture-backed startups lack.
Contracting with the Government
As we grow our federal business, revenue attributable to prime contracts or to subcontracts with other contractors engaged in work for the U.S. government is becoming a bigger contributor to our overall revenue. Within the U.S. government, our revenues are diversified across various agencies, including the Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. During 2019, more than 10% of our total revenues were attributable to our relationships (as the prime contractor or a subcontractor) with U.S. government agencies. Contracting with the U.S. government subjects us to substantial regulation and unique risks, including the U.S. government's ability to cancel any contract at any time through a termination for the convenience of the U.S. government. Government cancellation terms typically permit the recovery of all or a portion of our incurred costs and fees for work performed prior to termination when the U.S. government issues a termination for convenience. These regulations and risks are described in more detail below under "Risk Factors" in this annual report on Form 10-K.
Software Development
We commit significant resources to developing new health information system solutions and services. As of the end of 2019, approximately 7,300 associates were engaged in research and development activities. Total expenditures for the development and enhancement of our software solutions were $784 million, $747 million and $706 million during the 2019, 2018 and 2017 fiscal years, respectively. These figures include both capitalized and non-capitalized portions and exclude amounts amortized for financial reporting purposes.
As discussed above, continued investment in R&D remains a core element of our strategy. This will include ongoing enhancement of our core solutions and development of new solutions and services.
Intellectual Property
We have a broad portfolio of intellectual property rights to protect the proprietary interests in our solutions, services, devices and brands. Our solutions constitute works of authorship protected by copyrights in the U.S. and globally. We own valuable trade secrets embodied in, or related to, our solutions, services and devices and protect these rights through a number of technical and legal measures. We have registered or applied to register certain trademarks and service marks in a number of countries with particular emphasis on the Cerner branding elements. We continue to develop our patent portfolio and own more than 500 issued patents with hundreds of patent applications pending. We do not consider any of our businesses to be dependent upon any one patent, copyright, trademark, or trade secret, or any family or families of the same.
Our solutions, devices and services incorporate or rely on intellectual property rights licensed from third parties, including software subject to open source software licenses. Certain technologies licensed to Cerner are also important for internal use in running our business and supporting our clients. Although replacing any existing licenses could be inconvenient, based on our experiences, existing contractual relationships, and the incentives of our technology suppliers, we believe that Cerner will continue to obtain these technologies or suitable alternatives for commercially reasonable prices on commercially reasonable terms or under open source software licenses acceptable to Cerner.
Managing Cybersecurity Risks
Our business operations, including the provision of the solutions and services described above, involve the compilation, hosting and transmission of confidential information, including patient health information. We have included security features in our solutions and services that are intended to protect the privacy and integrity of this information, but our solutions and services may be vulnerable to security breaches, viruses, programming errors and other similar disruptive problems. Cerner maintains documented information privacy, security and risk management programs with clearly defined roles, responsibilities, policies, and procedures which are designed to secure the information maintained on Cerner's platforms.
In addition, all of our associates are required to complete annual cybersecurity education and training, which includes identifying suspicious emails, Internet threats, telecommunication threats and ransomware. Cerner regularly reviews and modifies its security program to reflect changing technology, regulatory environment, laws, risk, industry and security practices and other business needs. We believe our policies and procedures are adequate to ensure that relevant information about cybersecurity risks and incidents is appropriately reported and disclosed.
Sales and Marketing
The markets for Cerner HCIT solutions, health care devices and services include integrated delivery networks, physician groups and networks, managed care organizations, hospitals, medical centers, free-standing reference laboratories, home health agencies, blood banks, imaging centers, pharmacies, pharmaceutical manufacturers, employers, governments and public health organizations. The majority of our sales are clinical and revenue cycle solutions and services to hospitals and health systems, but our solutions and services are highly scalable and sold to organizations ranging from physician practices, to community hospitals, to complex integrated delivery networks, to local, regional and national government agencies. Sales to large health systems typically take approximately nine to 18 months, while the sales cycle is often shorter when selling to smaller hospitals and physician practices.
Our executive marketing management is located at our world headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri, while our client representatives are deployed across the United States and globally. In addition to the United States, through our subsidiaries, we have sales associates and/or offices giving us a presence in more than 35 countries.
We support our sales force with technical personnel who perform demonstrations of Cerner solutions and services and assist clients in determining the proper hardware and software configurations. Our primary direct marketing strategy is to generate
sales contacts from our existing client base and through presentations at industry seminars and tradeshows. We market our ambulatory solutions, offered on a subscription basis, directly to the physician practice market using lead generation activities and through existing acute care clients that are looking to extend Cerner solutions to affiliated physicians. We attend a number of major tradeshows each year and sponsor executive user conferences, which feature industry experts who address the HCIT needs of large health care organizations.
Backlog
Backlog, which reflects contracted revenue that has not yet been recognized as revenue, was $13.71 billion as of December 28, 2019, of which we expect to recognize approximately 30% as revenue over the next 12 months.
We believe that backlog may not necessarily be a comprehensive indicator of future revenue as certain of our arrangements may be canceled (or conversely renewed) at our clients' option; thus contract consideration related to such cancellable periods has been excluded from our calculation of backlog. However, historically our experience has been that such cancellation provisions are rarely exercised. We expect to recognize $760 million of revenue over the next 12 months under currently executed contracts related to such cancellable periods, which is not included in our calculation of backlog.
Competition
The market for HCIT solutions, devices and services is intensely competitive, rapidly evolving and subject to rapid technological change. We offer a suite of intelligent solutions and services that support the clinical, financial and operational needs of organizations of all sizes. The principle markets in which we compete include, without limitation, health care software solutions, HCIT services, ambulatory, health care device and technology resale, health care revenue cycle and transaction services, value-based care technologies, analytics systems, care management solutions, population health management, and post-acute care. Our principal existing competitors, including their affiliates, in these markets include, but are not limited to:
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Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, Inc.
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Evolent Health, LLC
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athenahealth, Inc.
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Health Catalyst, Inc.
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Capsule Technologies, Inc.
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InterSystems Corporation
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Computer Programs and Systems, Inc.
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MEDHOST, Inc.
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eClinicalWorks, LLC
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Medical Information Technology, Inc. (MEDITECH)
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Epic Systems Corporation
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Optum, Inc.
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In addition, we expect that major software information systems companies, large information technology consulting service providers and system integrators, start-up companies, managed care companies, healthcare insurance companies, accountable care organizations and others specializing in the health care industry may offer competitive software solutions, devices or services. The pace of change in the HCIT market is rapid and there are frequent new software solutions, devices or services introductions, enhancements and evolving industry standards and requirements. We believe that the principal competitive factors in our markets include the breadth and quality of solution and service offerings, the stability of the solution provider, the features and capabilities of the information systems and devices, the ongoing support for the systems and devices and the potential for enhancements and future compatible software solutions and devices. We believe that we compete favorably with our competitors on the basis of these factors and that we are the leader- or among the leaders- in each of our main offerings. Our brand recognition and reputation for innovative technology and service delivery, combined with our breadth of solution and services offerings, global distribution channels and client relationships position us as a strong competitor going forward.
Number of Employees (Associates)
At the end of 2019, we employed approximately 27,400 associates worldwide.
Information about our Executive Officers
The following table sets forth the names, ages, positions and certain other information regarding the Company's executive officers as of January 28, 2020. Officers are elected annually and serve at the discretion of the Board of Directors.
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Name
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Age
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Positions
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Brent Shafer
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62
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Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer
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Marc G. Naughton
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64
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Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
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John Peterzalek
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59
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Executive Vice President and Chief Client Officer
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Tracy L. Platt
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46
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Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer
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Randy D. Sims
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59
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Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and Secretary
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Donald Trigg
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48
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Executive Vice President, Strategic Growth
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Brent Shafer was appointed Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors effective February 1, 2018. Prior to joining the Company, Mr. Shafer served as Chief Executive Officer of Philips North America, a health technology company and the North American division of Koninklijke Philips N.V. ("Philips") since February 2014. In that position, Mr. Shafer led an organization of 17,000 employees and oversaw a health technology portfolio that included a broad range of solutions and services covering patient monitoring, imaging, clinical informatics, sleep and respiratory care as well as a group of market-leading consumer-oriented brands. For 12 years, Mr. Shafer played a key role in helping Philips develop and strengthen its health care focus, increase its profitability and grow its market share. Prior to his most recent position, Mr. Shafer served as Chief Executive Officer of the global Philips' Home Healthcare Solutions business, a home healthcare services provider with 6,000 employees, from May 2010 until May 2014, as Chief Executive Officer of the North America region for Royal Philips Electronics from January 2009 until May 2010, and as president and Chief Executive Officer of the Healthcare Sales and Service business for Philips North America from May 2005 until May 2010. Prior to joining Philips, Mr. Shafer served in various senior leadership positions with other companies, including Hill-Rom Company Inc., GE Medical Systems, and Hewlett-Packard.
Marc G. Naughton joined the Company in November 1992 as Manager of Taxes. In November 1995 he was named Chief Financial Officer and in February 1996 he was promoted to Vice President. He was promoted to Senior Vice President in March 2002 and promoted to Executive Vice President in March 2010.
John Peterzalek joined the Company in 2003 as President, Cerner South East and has held a variety of business and client leadership roles since that time, including Senior Vice President, East Region, a title which he held from 2007 to 2014 when he was named Senior Vice President, Client Relationships. He was promoted to Executive Vice President, Client Relationships in April 2017 and Executive Vice President, Worldwide Client Relationships in October 2017. He held the title of Executive Vice President, Worldwide Client Relationships until September 2018 when he was named Executive Vice President and Chief Client Officer. As Chief Client Officer, Mr. Peterzalek focuses on driving value, innovation and results to Cerner's clients globally and leads the corporate direction for revenue generation, solution strategy, business development, and marketing.
Tracy L. Platt joined the Company in July 2019 as Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer. Prior to joining the Company, Ms. Platt spent nearly 10 years in executive HR roles at Medtronic Plc, a global health care company that develops and distributes medical devices. More specifically, Ms. Platt was Vice President, Human Resources, Medtronic from September 2009 to July 2019. Ms. Platt brings health care experience from Medtronic and other key organizations, including Cardinal Health and GE Healthcare. Her most recent role at Medtronic included HR leadership for its global operations organization and driving an operating model transformation throughout the enterprise.
Randy D. Sims joined the Company in March 1997 as Vice President and Chief Legal Officer, was promoted to Senior Vice President in March 2011, and Executive Vice President in April 2018. Prior to joining the Company, Mr. Sims worked at Farmland Industries, Inc. for three years where he last served as Associate General Counsel. Prior to Farmland, Mr. Sims was in-house legal counsel at The Marley Company for seven years, holding the position of Assistant General Counsel when he left to join Farmland.
Donald Trigg serves as Executive Vice President, Strategic Growth. He originally joined the Company in 2002 as Vice President, Corporate Positioning. He has held multiple roles during his time at the Company, including Chief Marketing Officer
from 2003 to 2007, General Manager for the Kansas City region from 2006-2007, Managing Director for the United Kingdom and Ireland from 2008-2010 and Senior Vice President and President, Cerner Health Ventures from 2012-2018. From 2010-2012, Mr. Trigg served as Chief Revenue Officer at CodeRyte, Inc prior to its acquisition by 3M's healthcare division. Mr. Trigg also spent more than a decade serving in the public policy space as a senior advisor for the 2000 Bush for President campaign in Austin, TX, the Director of Policy at the U.S. Department of Commerce and in a series of senior policy roles in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate.
Item 1A. Risk Factors.
Risks Related to our Business
We may incur substantial costs related to product and service-related liabilities. Many of our software, health care devices, technology-enabled services or other services (collectively referred to as "Solutions and Services") are intended for use in collecting, storing and displaying clinical and health care-related information used in the diagnosis and treatment of patients and in related health care settings such as registration, scheduling and billing. We attempt to limit by contract our liability; however, the limitations of liability set forth in the contracts may not be enforceable or otherwise protect us from liability, and we may also be subject to claims that are not covered by contract. Although we maintain liability insurance coverage, there can be no assurance that such coverage will cover any claim, prove to be adequate or continue to remain available on acceptable terms, if at all. A successful material claim or series of claims against us, if uninsured or under-insured, could materially harm our business, results of operations and financial condition. Product and service-related claims, even if not successful, could damage our reputation, result in the loss of existing or potential clients, divert management's attention, result in significant revenue loss, create potential liabilities for our clients and us and increase insurance and other operational costs.
We may be subject to claims for system errors and warranties. Our Solutions and Services are very complex and may contain design, coding or other errors, especially when first introduced. Similarly, errors in the implementation and configuration of our Solutions and Services can occur and have occurred in the past. Errors in our Solutions and Services could affect their ability to properly function, integrate or operate with other offerings, create vulnerabilities and adversely affect market acceptance of our Solutions and Services. This includes third-party software products or services incorporated into our own solutions and services. Our client agreements typically provide warranties concerning material errors and other matters. If Solutions and Services provided to a client fail to meet these warranties, it could allow the client to terminate the agreement and possibly obtain a refund or damages or both, require us to incur additional expense to correct such failure, subject us to claims or litigation or damage our reputation and negatively affect future sales. Our client agreements generally limit our liability arising from such claims but such limits may not be enforceable in certain jurisdictions or circumstances. Although we maintain liability insurance coverage, there can be no assurance that such coverage will cover any claim, prove to be adequate or continue to remain available on acceptable terms, if at all. A successful material claim or series of claims against us, if uninsured or under-insured, could materially harm our business, results of operations and financial condition.
We may experience interruptions at our data centers or client support facilities, which could interrupt clients' access to their data, exposing us to significant costs and reputational harm. We perform data center and hosting services for certain clients, including the collection and storage of critical patient and administrative data and the provision of support services. Our business relies on the secure electronic transmission, data center storage and hosting of sensitive information, including protected health information; personally identifiable information; financial information; and other sensitive information relating to our clients and their patients, providers and certain billing information, our company, our workforce and our third party suppliers. We also use public cloud providers and other third parties in connection with hosting our own data. A power failure; an impairment of telecommunications lines; a successful concerted denial of service attack; a significant system, network or data breach; damage, injury or impairment (environmental, accidental or malicious) to the buildings, the equipment inside the buildings housing data centers, the personnel operating such facilities or the client data contained therein; or errors by the personnel trained to operate such facilities could cause a disruption in operations and negatively impact clients who depend on us for data hosting and system support services. System redundancy and other continuity measures may be ineffective or inadequate, and our business continuity and disaster recovery planning may not be sufficient for all eventualities. If any of our systems or those of third parties on which we rely are interrupted, damaged or breached, it could damage our reputation, cause us to lose existing clients, hurt our ability to obtain new clients, result in significant revenue loss, create potential liabilities for our clients and us, increase insurance and other operating costs and have a material adverse impact on our results of operations.
If our IT security is breached, or if the IT security of third parties on which we rely is breached, we could be subject to increased expenses, exposure to legal claims and regulatory actions, and clients and prospective clients could be deterred from using our Solutions and Services. Our Solutions and Services require us to store, retrieve, process and manage our clients' information and data (and that of their patients), as well as our own data. Third parties may attempt to identify and exploit Solution and Service vulnerabilities, penetrate or bypass our security measures, and gain unauthorized access to our or our clients' and suppliers' software, hardware and cloud offerings, networks and systems, any of which could lead to disruptions in mission-critical systems or the unauthorized release or corruption of protected health information, personally identifiable information, financial information or other sensitive information, or the confidential information or data of Cerner, our clients or their patients, or our suppliers. We may be targeted by computer hackers because we are a prominent health care IT company and have high profile clients, including government clients. These risks may increase as we continue to grow our cloud offerings, collect, store and process increasingly large amounts of our clients' confidential data, including protected health information, and host or manage parts of our clients' businesses in cloud-based/multi-tenant IT environments. We also use third party public cloud providers in connection with certain client facing cloud-based offerings and to host our own data. We believe we have a reputation for secure and reliable Solution and Service offerings, and we have invested significant time and resources in protecting the security, confidentiality, integrity and availability of our Solutions and Services and the internal and external data that we manage. However, there can be no assurance that our policies, procedures and controls or those of third parties on which we rely will detect or prevent all of these threats and we cannot predict the full impact of any such past or future incident.
The costs we would incur to address and remediate these security incidents would increase our expenses. Our efforts to address these problems may not be successful and could result in interruptions, delays, cessation of service and loss of existing or potential clients that may impede our sales, development of solutions, provision of services or other critical functions. If a cyber-attack or other security incident were to allow unauthorized access to or modification of our clients' or suppliers' data, our own data or our IT systems, or if our Solutions or Services are perceived as having security vulnerabilities, we could suffer significant damage to our brand and reputation. This in turn could lead to fewer clients using our Solutions and Services and result in reduced revenue and earnings. These types of security incidents could also lead to lawsuits, regulatory investigations and claims and increased legal liability, including regulatory actions by state and federal government authorities and non-US authorities and, in some cases, contractual costs related to notification and fraud monitoring of impacted persons. Although we maintain cyber risk insurance, there can be no assurance that such coverage will cover all of our losses from any future breaches of our IT systems or those of third parties on which we rely, prove to be adequate or continue to remain available on acceptable terms, if at all.
Our proprietary technology may be subject to claims for infringement or misappropriation of intellectual property rights of others, or our intellectual property rights may be infringed or misappropriated by others or our software may be subject to claims related to open source software licenses. We rely upon a combination of confidentiality practices and policies, license agreements, confidentiality provisions in employment agreements, confidentiality agreements with third parties and technical security measures to maintain the confidentiality and trade secrecy of our proprietary information. We also rely on trademark, copyright and patent laws to protect our intellectual property rights in the U.S. and abroad. Despite these efforts, we may not be able to adequately protect against theft, copying, reverse engineering, misappropriation, infringement or unauthorized use or disclosure of our intellectual property, which could have an adverse effect on our competitive position. In addition, we are occasionally involved in intellectual property infringement or misappropriation claims. These claims, even if unmeritorious, are expensive to defend and are often incapable of prompt resolution. If we become liable to third parties for infringing or misappropriating their intellectual property rights, we could be required to pay a substantial damage award, develop alternative technology, obtain a license or cease using, selling, offering for sale, licensing, implementing or supporting the applicable Solutions and Services. We rely upon open source software in our Solutions and Services. We may encounter claims from third parties alleging unauthorized use of the software purported to be licensed under open source terms, demanding release of derivative works of open source software that could include our proprietary source code, or otherwise seeking to enforce the terms of the applicable open source licenses. These claims could result in litigation and, even if unmeritorious, could be expensive to defend and incapable of prompt resolution. We could also be required to make our software source code available under the applicable open source license, utilize or develop alternative technology, or cease using, selling or supporting the applicable Solutions and Services if we are unsuccessful in defending such claims.
We may be subject to claims or become involved in legal proceedings that could have a material adverse impact on our business, results of operations and financial condition, and our inability or failure to effectively manage publicity related to such claims or legal proceedings could adversely impact our business. From time to time and in the ordinary course of our business, we may become involved in various legal proceedings and claims, including for example, employment disputes such as harassment or discrimination claims, and litigation; disputes and litigation alleging solution
and implementation defects, personal injury, intellectual property infringement, violations of law and breaches of contract and warranties; and other disputes and litigation. All such disputes and legal proceedings are inherently unpredictable and, regardless of the merits of the claims, litigation may lead to negative publicity, and may be expensive, time-consuming and disruptive to our operations and distracting to management. If resolved against us, such legal proceedings could result in excessive judgments, injunctive relief or other equitable relief that may affect how we operate our business. Any settlements of such proceedings may also affect how we operate our business. Although we maintain liability insurance coverage, there can be no assurance that such coverage will cover any judgment or settlement, prove to be adequate or continue to remain available on acceptable terms, if at all. If we incur liability that exceeds our insurance coverage or that is not within the scope of the coverage in legal proceedings brought against us, it could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition. Additionally, with the increased use of social media platforms, including blogs, chat platforms, social media websites, and other forms of Internet-based communications that allow individuals access to a broad audience, there has been an increase in the speed and accessibility of information dissemination. The dissemination of information via social media, including information about alleged harassment, discrimination or other claims, could harm our business, brand, reputation, financial condition, and results of operations, regardless of the information's accuracy.
We are subject to risks associated with our global operations. We market, sell and support our Solutions and Services globally. We have established offices around the world, including in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and the Asia Pacific region. As part of our ongoing portfolio management, we periodically evaluate entering into new markets and adjusting our focus in certain existing markets. Significant management attention and financial resources could be required to address the risks noted below associated with new market entry into non-U.S. markets and potential disruptions if we chose to adjust our focus in a given market. In some countries, our success will depend in part on our ability to form relationships with local partners. There is a risk that we may sometimes choose the wrong partner. For these and other reasons, we may not be able to maintain or increase non-U.S. market demand for our Solutions and Services.
Non-U.S. operations are subject to inherent risks, and our business, results of operations and financial condition, including our revenue growth and profitability, could be adversely affected by a variety of uncontrollable and changing factors. These include, but are not limited to:
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Greater difficulty in collecting accounts receivable and longer collection periods;
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Difficulties and costs of staffing and managing non-U.S. operations;
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The impact of global economic and political market conditions;
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Effects of sovereign debt conditions, including budgetary constraints;
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Unfavorable or volatile foreign currency exchange rates;
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Legal compliance costs or business risks associated with our global operations where: i) local laws and customs differ from, or are more stringent than those in the U.S., such as those relating to data protection and data security, or ii) risk is heightened with respect to laws prohibiting improper payments and bribery, including without limitation the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the U.K. Anti-Bribery Act and similar laws and regulations in foreign jurisdictions;
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Certification (e.g. CE marking for medical device software), licensing or regulatory requirements and unexpected changes to those requirements;
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Changes to or reduced protection of intellectual property rights in some countries;
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Potentially adverse tax consequences as a result of changes in tax laws or otherwise, and difficulties associated with repatriating cash generated or held abroad in a tax-efficient manner;
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Different or additional functionality requirements or preferences;
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Trade protection measures;
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Export control regulations;
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Health service provider or government spending patterns or government-imposed austerity measures;
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Natural disasters, war or terrorist acts;
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Labor disruptions that may occur in a country;
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Political unrest which may impact sales or threaten the safety of associates or our continued presence in these countries and the related potential impact on global stability; and
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Our reliance on certain partners, which help us to offer our Solutions and Services at scale, whose reputation may not be regarded as highly outside the U.S.
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Fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates could materially affect our financial results. Our consolidated financial statements are presented in U.S. dollars. In general, the functional currency of our subsidiaries is the local currency where the subsidiary operates. For each subsidiary, assets and liabilities denominated in foreign currencies are translated into U.S. dollars at the exchange rates in effect at the balance sheet dates and revenues and expenses are translated at the average
exchange rates prevailing during the month of the transaction. Therefore, increases or decreases in the value of the U.S. dollar against other major currencies affect our revenues, net earnings and the value of balance sheet items denominated in foreign currencies. Future fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates, particularly the strengthening of the U.S. dollar against major currencies, could materially affect our financial results.
We are subject to tax legislation in numerous countries; changes in tax laws or challenges to our tax positions could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. We are a global corporation with a presence in more than 35 countries. As such, we are subject to tax laws, regulations and policies of the U.S. federal, state and local governments and comparable taxing authorities in other country jurisdictions. Changes in tax laws could cause us to experience fluctuations in our tax obligations and effective tax rates in future periods and otherwise adversely affect our tax positions and our tax liabilities. Our effective tax rates, tax payments, tax credits or incentives could be adversely affected by changes in tax laws.
In addition, U.S. federal, state and local, as well as other countries' tax laws and regulations, are extremely complex and subject to varying interpretations and require significant judgment in determining our worldwide provision for income taxes and other tax liabilities. Longstanding international tax norms that determine each country's jurisdiction to tax cross-border international trade are evolving as a result of the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting reporting requirements ("BEPS") recommended by the G-20 and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ("OECD"). During 2018, the European Commission issued proposals and the OECD issued an interim report related to the taxation of the digital economy. During 2019, the OECD released a public consultation paper and a Programme of Work to achieve a consensus-based solution to address tax challenges of the digital economy. The Programme of Work was endorsed by the G-20. As these and other tax laws and related regulations change, our financial results could be materially impacted. Given the unpredictability of these possible changes and their potential interdependency, it is very difficult to assess the overall effect of such potential tax changes, but such changes could adversely impact our financial results.
In the ordinary course of a global business, there are many intercompany transactions and calculations which could be subject to challenge by tax authorities. We are regularly under audit by tax authorities and those authorities often do not agree with positions taken by us on our tax returns. Our intercompany transfer pricing has been reviewed by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service ("IRS") and by foreign tax jurisdictions and will likely be subject to additional audits in the future. There can be no assurance that our tax positions will not be challenged by relevant tax authorities or that we would be successful in any such challenge, which could result in additional taxation, penalties and interest payments.
The departure of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) could adversely affect our financial results. Negotiations surrounding the UK's withdrawal of its membership from the EU, which is commonly referred to as "Brexit," are continuing, and the specifics of any such departure remain uncertain. We have operations in the UK and the EU, and as a result, we face risks associated with the potential uncertainty and disruptions that may follow Brexit, including with respect to volatility in exchange rates and interest rates and potential material changes to the regulatory regime applicable to our operations in the UK. Brexit could adversely affect European or worldwide political, regulatory, economic or market conditions and could contribute to instability in global political institutions, regulatory agencies and financial markets. For example, depending on the terms of Brexit, the UK could also lose access to the single EU market and to the global trade deals negotiated by the EU on behalf of its members. Disruptions and uncertainty caused by Brexit may also cause our clients to closely monitor their costs and reduce their spending budget on our Solutions and Services. Any of these effects of Brexit, and others we cannot anticipate, could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Our success depends upon the recruitment and retention of key personnel. Members of our senior management team have departed the Company during the past few years for a variety of reasons, and we cannot guarantee that there will not be additional departures. To remain competitive, we must attract, motivate and retain highly skilled managerial, sales, marketing, consulting and technical personnel, including executives, consultants, programmers and systems architects skilled in the industries and technical environments in which our Solutions and Services are offered. As we modernize our core platforms to the cloud, it is important that we retain and attract experienced technical talent with cloud expertise to lead this transformation. Competition for such personnel in our industries is intense in both the U.S. and abroad. As other technology companies aggressively recruit for the same talent, and offer more alternative work arrangements, it is increasingly difficult to retain and attract this specialized talent. Our failure to attract additional qualified personnel and to retain and motivate existing personnel to meet our needs could have a material adverse effect on our prospects for long-term growth. In addition, our success is dependent to a significant degree on the continued contributions of key management, sales, marketing, consulting and technical personnel. We may also experience increased compensation costs that are not offset by either improved productivity or higher sales. The unexpected loss of key personnel, or the failure to successfully develop and execute effective succession planning to assure smooth transitions of those key associates and their knowledge, relationships
and expertise, could disrupt our business and have a material adverse impact on our results of operations and financial condition, and could potentially inhibit development and delivery of our Solutions and Services and market share advances.
We depend on strategic relationships and third party suppliers and our revenue and operating earnings could suffer if we fail to manage these relationships properly. To be successful, we must continue to maintain our existing strategic relationships and establish additional strategic relationships as necessary with leaders in the markets in which we operate. As we decide to partner rather than directly provide certain Solutions and Services, we will become more dependent on these strategic relationships to meet our clients' needs. We believe that these relationships contribute to our ability to further build our brand, extend the reach of our Solutions and Services, develop and deploy new products and services, and generate additional revenues and cash flows. The loss of a critical strategic relationship or failure to establish additional relationships, or the failure to realize anticipated synergies and benefits of these strategic relationships, could have a material adverse impact on our business, results of operations and financial condition.
We license or purchase certain intellectual property and technology (such as software, services, hardware and content) from third parties, including some competitors, and depend on such intellectual property and technology in the operation and delivery of our Solutions and Services. Additionally, we sell or license third party intellectual property and technology in conjunction with our Solutions and Services. For instance, we currently depend on Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Cloudera, Oracle, VMWare and IBM technologies for portions of the operational capabilities of, among others, our Millennium and HealtheIntent solutions. Our remote hosting and cloud services businesses also rely on a limited number of software and services suppliers for certain functions of these businesses, such as Oracle, NetApp, Microsoft, Veritas, CITRIX, GTT and Equinix. Additionally, we rely on Dell/EMC, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, Cisco, NetApp, IBM and others for our hardware technology platforms.
Most of our third party software license support contracts expire within one to five years, can be renewed only by mutual consent and may be terminated if we breach the terms of the license and fail to cure the breach within a specified period of time. Most of these third party software licenses are non-exclusive; therefore, our competitors may obtain the right to use the technology covered by these licenses to compete directly with us. If our third party suppliers were to change product offerings, cease actively supporting the technologies, fail to update and enhance the technologies to keep pace with changing industry standards, encounter technical difficulties in the continuing development of these technologies, significantly increase prices, change delivery models, terminate our licenses or supply contracts, suffer significant capacity or supply chain constraints or suffer significant disruptions, we may need to seek alternative suppliers and incur additional internal or external development costs to ensure continued performance of our Solutions and Services. Such alternatives may not be available on attractive terms, or may not be as widely accepted or as effective as the intellectual property or technology provided by our existing suppliers. In addition, interruption in functionality of our Solutions and Services as a result of changes in third party suppliers could adversely affect our commitments to clients, future sales of Solutions and Services, and negatively affect our revenue and operating earnings.
We intend to continue strategic business acquisitions and to make strategic investments, which are subject to inherent risks. In order to expand our Solutions and Services offerings and grow our market and client base, we may continue to seek and complete strategic business acquisitions and investments that we believe are complementary to our business. Acquisitions and strategic investments have inherent risks which may have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition or prospects, including, but not limited to: 1) diversion of our management's attention from other business concerns; 2) investment in or entry into markets in which we have little or no direct prior experience; 3) failure to achieve projected synergies; and 4) failure to commercialize "go forward" Solutions and Services; all of which could require us to incur significant expenses and cause management distraction. In addition to the above, the following additional risks are inherent in acquisitions and could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition or prospects: 1) failure to successfully integrate the business; 2) loss of clients, key personnel, suppliers and other important relationships; 3) incurrence of debt or assumption of known and unknown liabilities; 4) write-off of software development costs, goodwill, client lists and amortization of expenses related to intangible assets; 5) dilutive issuances of equity securities; 6) accounting deficiencies relating to the acquisition of an acquired company, including issues related to internal control over financial reporting and the time and cost associated with remedying such deficiencies; and 7) litigation related to acquisition activity, such as claims from former employees, former stockholders, clients or other third parties, all of which could require us to incur significant expenses and cause management distraction. Further, when we make a strategic investment, we have to rely on third party management teams to drive the portfolio company's success. If we fail to successfully integrate acquired businesses or fail to implement our business strategies with respect to our acquisitions or investments, we may not be able to achieve projected results or support the amount of consideration paid for such acquired businesses or invested into a portfolio company.
Volatility and disruption resulting from global economic or market conditions could negatively affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. Our business, results of operations, financial condition and outlook may be impacted by the health of the global economy. Our business and financial performance, including new business bookings and collection of our accounts receivable, may be adversely affected by current and future economic conditions (including a disruption or reduction in the availability of capital or credit, higher energy costs, rising interest rates, financial market volatility and lower than expected economic growth) that cause a slowdown or decline in client spending. Reduced purchases by our clients or changes in payment terms could adversely affect our revenue growth and cause a decrease in our cash flow from operations. Bankruptcies or similar events affecting clients may cause us to incur bad debt expense at levels higher than historically experienced. Further, volatility and disruption in global financial markets may also limit our ability to access the capital markets at a time when we would like, or need, to raise capital, which could have an impact on our ability to react to changing economic and business conditions. Accordingly, if global financial and economic volatility continues or worsens, our business, results of operations and financial condition could be materially and adversely affected.
We operate in intensely competitive and dynamic industries, and our ability to successfully compete and continue to grow our business depends on our ability to anticipate or respond quickly to market changes, changing technologies and evolving pricing and deployment methods and to bring competitive new Solutions and Services and features to market in a timely fashion. The market for our Solutions and Services is intensely competitive, dynamically evolving and subject to rapid technological advances and innovative enhancements, changing delivery and pricing models, evolving standards in computer hardware and software development and communications infrastructure, and changing and increasingly sophisticated client needs. Development of new proprietary Solutions or Services is complex, entails significant time and expense, may not be successful and often involves a long return on investment cycle. We cannot guarantee that the market for our Solutions and Services will continue to grow or that we will be able to successfully introduce new Solutions or Services. We provide solutions to clients via various deployment models, including client-server-based solutions and cloud-based offerings. As we move more of our offerings to the cloud, we may incur disruption as we transition existing clients and be less competitive during the transition, which could impact revenue and profitability. We believe we must continue to dedicate a significant amount of resources to our research and development efforts to maintain our competitive position; and oftentimes, successful investments require several years before generating significant revenue.
In addition, we expect that major software information systems companies, highly capitalized consumer technology companies, large information technology consulting service providers and system integrators, start-up companies and others operating in the health care industry may offer competitive Solutions and Services. As we continue to develop new Solutions and Services to address areas such as analytics, machine learning ("ML"), artificial intelligence ("AI"), value-based care, consumer solutions, population health management and other health network solutions, we expect to face new competitors, and these competitors may have more experience in these markets, better brand recognition or more established relationships with prospective clients. We face strong competition and often face downward price pressure, which could adversely affect our results of operations or liquidity. For example, some of our competitors may bundle products for promotional purposes or as a long-term pricing strategy, commit to large deployments at prices that are unprofitable, or provide guarantees of prices and product implementations. If we do not adapt our pricing models to reflect changes in use of our Solutions and Services or changes in client demand, our revenues could decrease.
Our success also depends on our ability to maintain and expand our business with our existing clients and effectively transition existing clients to current Solutions and Services, as well as attracting additional clients. Certain clients originally purchased one or a limited number of our Solutions and Services. These clients may choose not to expand their use of or purchase new Solutions and Services. Failure to retain and generate additional business from our current clients could materially and adversely impact our business, financial condition and operating results. In addition, there are a limited number of hospitals and other health care providers in the U.S. market, and the health care industry has been subject to increasing consolidation, which can cause fewer new footprint opportunities or lead to the replacement of our Solutions and Services in existing clients if the acquiror (or the group being acquired) has a relationship with a different HCIT provider. If we are unable to adapt to the impact of industry consolidation, falling costs and technological advancements in a timely manner, our prospects and financial results could be negatively affected.
If we are unable to manage our growth in the new markets in which we offer Solutions and Services, our business, results of operations and financial condition could suffer. Our future financial results will depend on our ability to profitably manage our business in the new markets that we enter. We expect to pursue growth and expansion opportunities in the areas of analytics, ML, AI, value-based care, consumer solutions, population health and other health network solutions. To achieve success in those areas, we will need to, among other things, recruit, train, retain and effectively manage associates, manage changing business conditions and implement and improve our technical, administrative, financial control and reporting
systems for offerings in those areas. Difficulties in managing future growth in new markets could have a material adverse impact on our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Long sales cycles for our Solutions and Services could have a material adverse impact on our future results of operations. Some of our Solutions and Services have long sales cycles, ranging from several months to eighteen months or more beginning at initial contact with the client through execution of a contract. Implementing, replacing, or expanding an information system, or modifying, adding or outsourcing business processes, are major decisions for health care organizations. Many of the Solutions and Services we provide require a substantial capital investment and time commitments by the client or prospective client. Any decision by our clients or prospective clients to delay a purchasing decision could have a material adverse impact on our results of operations.
Our work with government clients exposes us to additional risks inherent in the government contracting environment. Our clients include national, provincial, state, local and foreign governmental entities and their agencies. Our government work carries various risks inherent in contracting with such government entities and agencies. These risks include, but are not limited to, the following:
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Government entities, particularly in the U.S., often reserve the right to audit our contracts and conduct reviews, inquiries and investigations of our business practices and performance with respect to government contracts. Negative findings from audits, reviews, inquiries or investigations could affect our future sales and profitability by preventing us, by operation of law or in practice, from receiving new government contracts for some period of time.
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If a government client discovers improper or illegal activities during its audits or investigations, we may become subject to various civil and criminal penalties, including those under the civil U.S. False Claims Act, and administrative sanctions, which may include termination of contracts, suspension of payments, fines and civil money penalties, and suspensions or debarment from doing business with other agencies of that government. The inherent limitations of internal controls may not prevent or detect all improper or illegal activities.
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U.S. government contracting regulations impose strict compliance and disclosure obligations. Disclosure is required if certain company personnel have knowledge of "credible evidence" of a violation of federal criminal or civil laws involving fraud, conflict of interest, bribery or improper gratuity, a violation of the civil U.S. False Claims Act or receipt of an overpayment from the government. Failure to make required disclosures could be a basis for suspension or debarment, or both, from federal government contracting in addition to breach of the specific contract and could also impact contracting beyond the U.S. federal level. Reported matters also could lead to audits or investigations and other civil, criminal or administrative sanctions.
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Government contracts are subject to heightened reputational and contractual risks compared to contracts with commercial clients. Government contracts often involve more extensive scrutiny and publicity. For example, the United States House Veterans' Affairs Subcommittee on Technology Modernization has oversight and investigative jurisdiction of the VA's Electronic Health Record Modernization ("EHRM") program. The Subcommittee has requested Cerner to participate in several oversight hearings. Negative publicity, including allegations of improper or illegal activity, poor contract performance, or information security breaches, regardless of accuracy, may adversely affect our reputation.
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Terms and conditions of government contracts also tend to be more onerous and are often more difficult to negotiate. We must comply with specific procurement regulations and a variety of other socio-economic requirements, as well as various statutes, regulations and requirements related to employment practices, recordkeeping and accounting. These regulations and requirements affect how we transact business with our clients and suppliers, and in some instances, involve additional costs.
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Government entities typically fund projects through appropriated monies. Government entities, however, reserve the right to change the scope of or terminate these projects at their convenience for lack of approved funding or other reasons. Changes in government or political developments, including budget deficits, shortfalls or uncertainties, government spending reductions (e.g., U.S. Congressional sequestration of funds under the Budget Control Act of 2011) or other debt constraints could result in our projects being reduced in price or scope or terminated altogether, which also could limit our recovery of reimbursable expenses. If insufficient funding is appropriated to the government entity to cover termination costs, we also may not be able to fully recover our investments.
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Our failure to comply with a variety of complex procurement rules and regulations could result in our liability for penalties, including termination of our government contracts, disqualification from bidding on future government contracts and suspension or debarment from government contracting. We must comply with laws and regulations relating to the formation, administration and performance of government contracts (e.g., the Federal Acquisition Regulation and supplements, the Truth in Negotiations Act, the Procurement Integrity Act, and the Civil False Claims Act), which affect how we do business with our customers and may impose added costs on our business.
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Government contracts may be protested. These protests could result in administrative procedures and litigation, result in delays in performance and payment, be expensive to defend and be incapable of prompt resolution. Loss of a bid protest may result in loss of the award, contract modification, expense or delay.
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It is common in contracting with governments for there to be a prime contractor with privity of contract to the government client and one or more subcontractors. We serve in both capacities for different government clients. For example, we are a subcontractor to Leidos, Inc. under the MHS Genesis contract with the U.S. Department of Defense, and we are the prime contractor under the EHRM contract with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. There are inherent risks in being a subcontractor, including without limitation, reliance on the performance of the prime contractor for the execution of the contract to the satisfaction of the client and other risks in government contracting as described in the bullets above. If the prime contractor fails to perform under the agreement, fails or delays in issuing an order to us or in paying us for the Solutions and Services rendered, or is debarred or otherwise restricted from contracting with the government client, it could have a material adverse impact on our business, results of operations and financial condition. Additionally, when we serve as the prime contractor, we rely on our subcontractors to fulfill certain contractual obligations under our agreements with government clients. Any failure on the part of the subcontractors to perform under our subcontracts with them could subject us to negative reputational or contractual risk.
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The occurrences or conditions described above could affect not only our business with the particular government entities involved, but also our business with other entities of the same or other governmental bodies or with certain commercial clients and could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.
There are risks associated with our outstanding and future indebtedness. As of December 28, 2019, we had $1.03 billion of long-term debt outstanding, and we may incur additional indebtedness in the future. We have customary restrictive covenants in our current debt agreements, which may limit our flexibility to operate our business. These covenants include limitations on priority debt, liens, mergers, asset dispositions, and transactions with affiliates, and require us to maintain certain leverage and interest coverage ratios. Failure to comply with these covenants could result in an event of default that, if not cured or waived, could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition. Additionally, our ability to pay interest and repay the principal for our indebtedness is dependent upon our ability to manage our business operations, generate sufficient cash flows to service such debt and the other factors discussed in this section. There can be no assurance that we will be able to manage any of these risks successfully.
The interest rates under our financing agreements and the interest rate swap related to the outstanding indebtedness under our Credit Agreement may be adversely impacted by the phase-out of London Interbank Offered Rate ("LIBOR") as a benchmark reference for short-term interest rates. LIBOR is scheduled to be phased out by the end of 2021. When LIBOR ceases to exist, we will need to agree upon a replacement index with the lenders under our outstanding indebtedness at the time, and such new rates may not be as favorable to us as those in effect prior to any LIBOR phase-out. With respect to our Third Amended and Restated Credit Agreement (as amended, the "Credit Agreement") and the related interest rate swap, if the swap and the Credit Agreement replacement rates are not identical, our hedge could be less effective. Our failure to manage these risks effectively could adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.
Goodwill and other intangible assets represent approximately 18% of our total assets and we could suffer losses due to asset impairment charges. We assess our goodwill and other intangible assets for impairment periodically in accordance with applicable authoritative accounting guidance. Declines in business performance or other factors could result in a non-cash impairment charge. This could materially and negatively affect our results of operations and financial condition.
Risks Related to our Industries
The health care industry is subject to changing political, economic and regulatory influences, which could impact the purchasing practices and operations of our clients and increase our costs to deliver Solutions and Services that enable our clients to meet their compliance requirements. Many health care providers are consolidating to create integrated health care delivery systems with greater market power. These providers may try to use their market power to negotiate price reductions for our Solutions and Services. As the health care industry consolidates, our client base could be consolidated with fewer buyers, competition for clients could become more intense and the importance of maintaining and acquiring new client relationships becomes greater.
The last five years have been quite active legislatively with major statutes such as the Protecting Access to Medicare Act (PAMA) of 2014 establishing requirements for "Appropriate Use Criteria" in ordering high dollar diagnostic imaging services, the Medicare and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 which reformed how physicians are paid under Medicare and which established the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS); the 21st Century Cures Act of 2016 (Cures Act), which laid the groundwork for a nationwide trusted health information exchange, established interoperability requirements for providers, payers and consumers, and set the framework for information blocking regulations; and most recently the Substance Use Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment for Patients and Communities (SUPPORT) Act of 2018 that includes significant policies for addressing the opioid crisis. These statutes are heavily laden with provisions that directly call for or describe roles for the use of health information technology to help providers comply with new federal requirements under Medicare and state Medicaid programs.
Reform of payment policies for Medicare and Medicaid continues to evolve. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act became law in 2010; this comprehensive health care reform legislation introduced value-based principles into federal health insurance payments systems, sought to improve health care quality, and expanded access to affordable health insurance. MACRA built upon the value based policies introduced by the ACA. These legislative initiatives accelerated the adoption of "Alternative Payment Models" (APMs) as bundled payment models based on episodes of care or per capita payment for defined populations as alternatives to traditional fee for service payments to providers. New APMs continue to be developed under the authorities of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovations, and value-based efforts such as the Medicare Shared Savings Program Accountable Care Organization (MSSP ACO) program or Bundled Payment for Care Improvement (BPCI) Advanced episode-based payment model program have seen their second iteration. APMs have evolved to usually require two-sided risk (shared saving and shared losses), and use of Certified EHR Technology (CEHRT) as a precondition for program participation. However, even after failed attempts to repeal the ACA, subsequent judicial developments continue to create uncertainty for the continued implementation of the ACA. Given a fractious and polarized legislative environment at the federal level, the near term prospects for health care related legislation face uncertainty. Because of ongoing federal fiscal budgetary pressures yet to be resolved for federal health programs, we cannot predict the full effect of health care legislation on our business at this time. The direction and pace of health care reform initiatives may adversely impact either our operational results or the way we operate our business. We also anticipate significant impacts from information blocking provisions of the Cures Act which includes mandated adoption of new certified capabilities and updates to support new interoperability requirements as a part of required use of certified HCIT. We expect expanded surveillance by federal agencies of certified HCIT and its use by our clients. We also anticipate newly expanded regulations under the federal Self-Referral and Anti-Kickback Laws that will contain expanded safe harbors for value based care, and that may promote expanded donation of certified HCIT and of cybersecurity technologies in support of trusted health information exchange to support coordinated patient care within value based APMs. In response to this uncertainty, purchasers of HCIT may elect to update HCIT already in use and postpone investment decisions in new or replacement HCIT, including investments in our Solutions and Services. Future legislation and regulation may ultimately impact the fiscal stability and sustainability of HCIT purchasers. Differences in demand related to new regulatory requirements and near-term compliance deadlines that contribute to demand for our Solutions and Services could impact our financial results. There can be no certainty that any legislation that may be adopted will be favorable to our business. We cannot predict whether or when future health care reform initiatives at the federal or state level or other initiatives affecting our business will be proposed, enacted or implemented or what impact those initiatives may have on our business, results of operations and financial condition.
The health care industry is highly regulated, and thus, we are subject to several laws, regulations and industry initiatives, non-compliance with certain of which could materially adversely affect our operations or otherwise adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. As a participant in the health care industry, our operations and relationships, and those of our clients, are regulated by several U.S. federal, state, local and foreign governmental entities. The impact of these regulations on us is both direct, to the extent that we are ourselves subject to these laws and regulations, and also indirect, in terms of government program requirements applicable to our clients for the use of HCIT. Even though we may not be directly regulated by specific health care laws and regulations, our Solutions and
Services must be capable of being used by our clients in a way that complies with those laws and regulations. There are a significant and wide-ranging number of regulations both within the U.S. and abroad, such as regulations in the areas of health care fraud, information blocking, e-prescribing, claims processing and transmission, health care devices, the security and privacy of patient data and interoperability standards, that may be directly or indirectly applicable to our operations and relationships or the business practices of our clients. Specific risks include, but are not limited to, the following:
Health Care Fraud. U.S. federal and state governments continue to enhance regulation of and increase their scrutiny over practices involving health care fraud, waste and abuse perpetuated by health care providers and professionals whose services are reimbursed by Medicare, Medicaid and other government health care programs. Our health care provider clients, as well as our provision of Solutions and Services to government entities, subject our business to laws and regulations on fraud and abuse which, among other things, prohibit the direct or indirect payment or receipt of any remuneration for patient referrals, or arranging for or recommending referrals or other business paid for in whole or in part by these federal or state health care programs. U.S. federal enforcement personnel have substantial funding, powers and remedies to pursue suspected or perceived fraud and abuse. The effect of this government regulation on our clients is difficult to predict. Many of the regulations applicable to our clients and that may be applicable to us, including those relating to marketing incentives offered in connection with health care device sales and information blocking, are vague or indefinite and have not been interpreted by the courts. They may be interpreted or applied by prosecutorial, regulatory or judicial authorities in a manner that could broaden their applicability to us or require our clients to make changes in their operations or the way in which they deal with us. If such laws and regulations are determined to be applicable to us and if we fail to comply with any applicable laws and regulations, we could be subject to civil and criminal penalties, sanctions or other liability, including exclusion from government health programs, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition. Even an unsuccessful challenge by a regulatory or prosecutorial authority of our activities could result in adverse publicity, require a costly response from us and adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Preparation, Transmission, Submission and Collection of Medical Claims for Reimbursement. Our Solutions and Services are capable of electronically transmitting claims for services and items rendered by a physician to many patients' payers for approval and reimbursement. We also provide revenue cycle management services to our clients that include the coding, preparation, submission and collection of claims for medical service to payers for reimbursement. Such claims are governed by U.S. federal and state laws. U.S. federal law provides civil liability to any persons that knowingly submit, or cause to be submitted, a claim to a payer, including Medicare, Medicaid and private health plans, seeking payment for any services or items that overbills or bills for services or items that have not been provided to the patient. U.S. federal law may also impose criminal penalties for intentionally submitting such false claims. In addition, federal and state law regulates the collection of debt and may impose monetary penalties for violating those regulations. We have policies and procedures in place that we believe result in the accurate and complete preparation, transmission, submission and collection of claims, provided that the information given to us by our clients is also accurate and complete. The HIPAA security, privacy and transaction standards, as discussed below, also have a potentially significant effect on our claims preparation, transmission and submission services, because those services must be structured and provided in a way that supports our clients' HIPAA compliance obligations. In connection with these laws, we may be subjected to U.S. federal or state government investigations and possible penalties may be imposed upon us; false claims actions may have to be defended; private payers may file claims against us; and we may be excluded from Medicare, Medicaid or other government-funded health care programs. Any investigation or proceeding related to these laws, even if unwarranted or without merit, may have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Regulation of Health Care Devices. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration ("FDA") has determined that certain of our Solutions and Services are medical devices that are actively regulated under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act ("Act") and amendments to the Act. Other countries have similar regulations in place related to medical devices, that now or may in the future apply to certain of our Solutions and Services. If other of our Solutions and Services are deemed to be actively regulated medical devices by the FDA or similar regulatory agencies in countries where we do business, we could be subject to extensive requirements governing pre- and post-marketing activities including pre-market notification clearance. Complying with these medical device regulations globally is time consuming and expensive and could be subject to unanticipated and significant delays. Further, it is possible that these regulatory agencies may become more active in regulating software and devices that are used in health care. If we are unable to obtain the required regulatory approvals for any such Solutions and Services, our short- and long-term business plans for these Solutions and Services could be delayed or canceled.
There have been nine FDA inspections at various Cerner sites since 2003. Inspections conducted at our Headquarters Campus, Realization Campus and Innovations Campus in 2010 and 2017 each resulted in the issuance of an FDA Form 483 observation to which we responded promptly. The FDA has taken no further action with respect to either of the Form
483 observations that were issued in 2010 and 2017. The remaining FDA inspections, including inspections at our campuses in 2006, 2007 and 2014, resulted in no issuance of a Form 483. We remain subject to periodic FDA inspections and we could be required to undertake additional actions to comply with the Act and any other applicable regulatory requirements. Our failure to comply with the Act and any other applicable regulatory requirements could have a material adverse effect on our ability to continue to manufacture, distribute and deliver our Solutions and Services. The FDA has many enforcement tools including recalls, device corrections, seizures, injunctions, refusal to grant pre-market clearance of products, civil fines and criminal prosecutions. Any of the foregoing could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Security and Privacy. U.S. federal, state and local and foreign laws regulate the confidentiality of personal information, how that information may be used, and the circumstances under which such information may be released. These regulations govern both the disclosure and use of confidential personal and patient medical record information and require the users of such information to implement specified security and privacy measures. U.S. regulations currently in place governing electronic health data transmissions continue to evolve and are often unclear and difficult to apply. Laws in non-U.S. jurisdictions are also evolving and may have similar or even stricter requirements related to the treatment of personal or patient information.
Data protection regulations impact how businesses, including both us and our clients, can collect and process the personal data of individuals. The costs of compliance with, and other burdens imposed by, such laws, regulations and policies, or modifications thereto, that are applicable to us may limit the use and adoption of our Solutions and Services and could have a material adverse impact on our business, results of operations and financial condition. Furthermore, we incur development, resource, and capital costs in delivering, updating, and supporting Solutions and Services to enable our clients to comply with these varying and evolving standards. Governmental enforcement personnel have substantial powers and remedies to pursue suspected or perceived violations. If we fail to comply with any applicable laws or regulations or fail to deliver compliant Solutions and Services, we could be subject to civil penalties, sanctions and contract liability. Enforcement investigations, even if meritless, could have a negative impact on our reputation, cause us to lose existing clients or limit our ability to attract new clients.
In the U.S., HIPAA regulations apply national standards for some types of electronic health information transactions and the data elements used in those transactions to ensure the integrity, security and confidentiality of health information and standards to protect the privacy of individually identifiable health information. Covered entities under HIPAA, which include health care organizations such as our clients, our employer clinic business and our claims processing, transmission and submission services, are required to comply with HIPAA privacy standards, transaction regulations and security regulations.
Evolving HIPAA and HITECH-related laws and regulations in the U.S. and data privacy and security laws and regulations in non-U.S. jurisdictions could restrict the ability of our clients to obtain, use or disseminate patient information. This could adversely affect demand for our Solutions and Services if they are not re-designed in a timely manner to meet the requirements of any new interpretations or regulations that seek to protect the privacy and security of patient data or enable our clients to execute new or modified health care transactions. We may need to expend additional capital, software development and other resources to modify our Solutions and Services to address these evolving data security and privacy issues. Furthermore, our failure to maintain confidentiality of sensitive personal information in accordance with the applicable regulatory requirements could damage our reputation and expose us to claims, fines and penalties. U.S. state data breach notification laws continue to expand the type of personal information they encompass, such as health and insurance information, and in many cases are more burdensome than the HIPAA/HITECH breach reporting requirements.
In non-U.S. jurisdictions, we are subject to transnational, national and local data protection legislation, including the EU General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR"), Canadian Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and Canadian Provincial legislation. These regulations may impose restrictions on the processing of personal data (including health data) that, in some respects, are more stringent, and impose more significant burdens on subject businesses, than current privacy standards in the U.S. The EU regulation establishes several obligations that organizations must follow with respect to use of personal data, including a prohibition on the transfer of personal information from the EU to other countries whose laws do not adequately protect the privacy and security of personal data to European standards. In addition to this EU-wide legislation, certain European member states have adopted more stringent data protection standards, particularly for health data. We have addressed these requirements, relative to data transfers, by self-certifying our compliance with the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework to the U.S. Department of Commerce International Trade Administration ("ITA"). However, continued criticism of the Privacy Shield by officials in Europe casts uncertainty as to the long-term effectiveness of the Privacy Shield to support EU-U.S. transfers of personal data. For that reason, we are also pursuing alternative methods of compliance (e.g. Standard Contractual Clauses), but those methods also may be subject to scrutiny by data protection authorities in European member states.
The GDPR impacts how businesses, including both us and our clients, can collect and process the personal data of EU individuals. We have incurred development costs in delivering Solutions and Services as we update our Solutions and Services to enable our European clients to comply with these varying and evolving standards. The costs of compliance with, and other burdens imposed by, such laws, regulations and policies, or modifications thereto, that are applicable to us may limit the use and adoption of our Solutions and Services and could have a material adverse impact on our business, results of operations and financial condition.
The GDPR grants broad enforcement powers to regulatory agencies to investigate and enforce our compliance with their data privacy and security requirements. Governmental enforcement personnel, particularly in the EU, have substantial powers and remedies to pursue suspected or perceived violations. If we fail to comply with any applicable laws or regulations or fail to deliver compliant Solutions and Services, we could be subject to civil penalties, sanctions or contract liability. Enforcement investigations, even if meritless, could have a negative impact on our reputation, cause us to lose existing clients or limit our ability to attract new clients.
Development and adoption of ML and AI technologies offer the potential to significantly improve the delivery of healthcare. The application of ML and AI technologies to personal and patient information may be regulated under some privacy laws (e.g. GDPR). Furthermore, the lack of standards for measuring the accuracy and effectiveness of ML and AI can raise new or exacerbate existing technological, legal or other challenges that could impact our reputation and have a material adverse impact on our results of operations.
Interoperability Standards. Our clients continue to be concerned and often require that our Solutions and Services be interoperable with other third party HCIT suppliers. Market forces and governmental/regulatory authorities create software interoperability standards that may apply to our Solutions and Services. These expectations for interoperability are supported by the information blocking prohibitions of the Cures Act. If our Solutions and Services are not consistent with those requirements, we could be forced to incur substantial additional development costs to conform. The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) is also charged under the Cures Act with developing a Trusted Exchange Framework that establishes governance requirements for trusted health information exchange in the U.S. ONC has developed the U.S. Common Data Set for Interoperability which may lay the groundwork for future data exchange requirements for trusted exchange. ONC continues to modify and refine these standards. We may incur increased software development and administrative expense and delays in delivering Solutions and Services if we need to update our Solutions and Services to conform to these varying and evolving requirements. In addition, delays in interpreting these standards may result in postponement or cancellation of our clients' decisions to purchase our Solutions and Services. If our Solutions and Services are not compliant with these evolving standards, our market position and sales could be impaired, and we may have to invest significantly in changes to our Solutions and Services.
Federal Requirements for Certified Health Information Technology. Various U.S. federal, state and non-government agencies continue to generate requirements for the use of certified health information technology. In many cases, these requirements have become conditions for receiving payment for health care services to beneficiaries of federal health insurance programs. These requirements are expansions of the statutory ARRA HITECH program that began providing incentive payments in 2011 to hospitals and eligible providers for the "meaningful use of certified electronic health record technology ("CEHRT")." Although those incentive programs have expired, CEHRT continues to be a condition of participation in federal health care programs. In 2015, MACRA required the use of CEHRT as part of its Quality Payment Program for eligible providers under Medicare. CEHRT is also one of the areas measured under the Merit based Incentive Payment System (known as MIPS) by which the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule was restructured. In the last several years, participation in Medicare's "alternative payment models" to replace traditional "fee for service" payments with quality and risk-sharing payment models has been conditioned on CEHRT and this continues with the Trump Administration. The Cures Act has tied CEHRT to its policy goals of reducing barriers to the exchange of health information data blocking, encouraging nationwide interoperability, consumer access to health information and improving health information availability between consumers and their care teams. The regulations establishing the certification standards for CEHRT will continue to be updated to support these policy goals with greater emphasis on interoperability, consumer engagement, patient safety and health information privacy and security. The ONC is soon to finalize additional regulations under the Cures Act to enforce the act's policy directives relating to data blocking and interoperability. These regulations will also mandate adoption of updated and expanded certified capabilities of CEHRT that our clients must adopt to remain able to participate in the federal programs mentioned earlier. In addition, the ONC has increased its surveillance activities concerning vendor compliance relative to CEHRT.
We have completed certification efforts to meet current CEHRT requirements that became mandatory for certain Federal programs on January 1, 2019, and for many others that became mandatory during 2019. We will continue to address additional
regulatory requirements as they evolve to support the mandatory updates that are expected as a result of the Cures Act. However, these standards and specifications are subject to interpretation by the entities designated to certify our electronic health care technology as CEHRT compliant. Additionally, if our business practices or our Solutions and Services are not compliant with these evolving regulatory requirements, our market position and sales could be impaired, and we may have to invest significantly in changes to our Solutions and Services. Further, we bear potential financial risks where we are alleged to have not appropriately complied with these regulations. We also bear financial risk where we have entered into agreements with clients to warrant their ability to meet future federal program requirements that require use of CEHRT. While a client's ability to meet future federal health program related attestation requirements may be dependent on the client's ability to adopt, rollout and attain sufficient use of our certified Solutions and Services on a timely basis, we may face risks that come from issues in full adoption of our certified Solutions and Services, which in turn could lead to a client missing its attestation targets. These risks are enhanced when we are under agreements to provide application management services to our clients that place responsibilities on us for application configuration and implementation as a prerequisite to meaningful use attainment ordinarily borne by the client.
Risks Related to Our Common Stock
Our quarterly operating results may vary, which could adversely affect our stock price. Our quarterly operating results have varied in the past and may continue to vary in future periods, including variations from guidance, expectations or historical results or trends. Quarterly operating results may vary for a number of reasons including demand for our Solutions and Services, the financial condition of our current and potential clients, our long sales cycle, potentially long installation and implementation cycles for larger, more complex systems, accounting policy changes and other factors described in this section and elsewhere in this report. As a result of health care industry trends and the market for our Solutions and Services, a large percentage of our revenues are generated by the sale and installation of larger, more complex and higher-priced systems. The sales process for these systems is lengthy and involves a significant technical evaluation and commitment of capital and other resources by the client. Sales may be subject to delays due to changes in clients' internal budgets, procedures for approving large capital expenditures, competing needs for other capital expenditures, additions or amendments to applicable laws, availability of personnel resources or by actions taken by competitors. Delays in the expected sale, installation or implementation of these large systems may have a significant negative impact on our anticipated quarterly revenues and consequently our earnings, since a significant percentage of our expenses are relatively fixed. Because of the complexity and value of our contracts, the loss of even a small number of clients could have a significant negative effect on our financial results.
Revenue recognized in any quarter may depend upon our or our clients' abilities to meet project milestones. Delays in meeting these milestone conditions or modification of the project plan could result in a shift of revenue recognition from one quarter to another and could have a material adverse effect on results of operations for a particular quarter. We may also experience seasonality in revenues. For example, our revenues historically have been lower in the first quarter of the year and greater in the fourth quarter of the year, primarily as a result of clients' year-end efforts to make final capital expenditures for the then-current year. These seasonal variations may lead to fluctuations in our annual and quarterly revenues and operating results.
Our sales forecasts may vary from actual sales in a particular quarter. We use a "pipeline" system, a common industry practice, to forecast sales and trends in our business. Our sales associates monitor the status of all sales opportunities, such as the date when they estimate that a client will make a purchase decision and the potential dollar amount of the sale. These estimates are aggregated periodically to generate a sales pipeline. We compare this pipeline at various points in time to evaluate trends in our business. This analysis provides guidance in business planning and forecasting, but these pipeline estimates are by their nature speculative. Our pipeline estimates are not necessarily reliable predictors of revenues in a particular quarter or over a longer period of time, partially because of changes in the pipeline and in conversion rates of the pipeline into contracts that can be very difficult to estimate. A negative variation in the expected conversion rate or timing of the pipeline into contracts, or in the pipeline itself, could cause our plan or forecast to be inaccurate and thereby adversely affect business results. For example, a slowdown in information technology spending, adverse economic conditions, new or changed laws related to our industry or a variety of other factors can cause purchasing decisions to be delayed, reduced in amount or cancelled, which would reduce the overall pipeline conversion rate in a particular period of time. Because a substantial portion of our contracts are completed in the latter part of a quarter, we may not be able to adjust our cost structure quickly enough in response to a revenue shortfall resulting from a decrease in our pipeline conversion rate in any given fiscal quarter.
The trading price of our common stock may be volatile. The market for our common stock may experience significant price and volume fluctuations in response to a number of factors including actual or anticipated variations in operating results,
articles or rumors about our performance or Solutions and Services, announcements of technological innovations or new services or products by our competitors or us, changes in expectations of future financial performance or estimates of securities analysts, governmental regulatory action, health care reform measures, client relationship developments, economic conditions and other factors, many of which are beyond our control. Furthermore, the stock market in general, and the markets for software, health care devices, other health care solutions and services and information technology companies in particular have experienced extreme volatility that often has been unrelated to the operating performance of particular companies. These broad market and industry fluctuations may adversely affect the trading price of our common stock, regardless of actual operating performance. As a matter of policy, we do not generally comment on our stock price or rumors.
We might not be successful in achieving expected operating efficiencies and sustaining or improving operating expense reductions, and might experience business disruptions and adverse tax consequences associated with restructuring, realignment and costs reduction activities. Our Board of Directors has implemented and plans to continue to implement several restructuring and realignment initiatives to reduce costs and increase operating efficiencies. There can be no assurance that we will realize, in full or in part, the anticipated benefits of these initiatives. For example, as part of our ongoing portfolio management, we may decide to divest assets or businesses. When we decide to sell assets or a business, we may encounter difficulty in finding buyers or alternative exit strategies on acceptable terms in a timely manner, which could delay the achievement of our strategic objectives. We may also experience greater dis-synergies than expected, and the impact of the divestiture on our revenue growth could be larger than projected.
Our financial goals assume a level of productivity improvement and cost reduction. If we are unable to deliver on these goals, while continuing to invest in business growth, or if the volume and nature of change overwhelms available resources, our business operations and financial results could be materially and adversely impacted. Our ability to successfully manage and execute these initiatives and realize expected savings and benefits in the amounts and at the times anticipated is important to our business success. Any failure to do so, which could result from our inability to successfully execute organizational change, cost-cutting initiatives and productivity improvement plans, changes in global or regional economic conditions, competition, changes in the industries in which we compete, unanticipated costs or charges, inability to attract or retain key personnel, attrition beyond any planned reduction in workforce, and other factors described herein, could have a material adverse effect on our businesses, financial condition and results of operations. Moreover, our ability to achieve our other strategic goals and business plans might be adversely affected and we could experience business disruptions with clients and elsewhere if our restructuring and realignment efforts and our cost reduction activities prove ineffective.
Lower than expected revenue growth or shifts in our revenue mix could adversely affect our results of operations.
Our revenue growth and mix could vary over time due to a number of factors, including timing of contracts signing, changes
in the health of our end markets, unexpected client attrition, and the mix of software, hardware, devices, maintenance, support and services revenues, which carry different margin rates which can vary from period to period. Our operating results could be harmed by changes in revenue mix and costs, together with numerous other factors, including rapid growth in lower margin services business, declines in software, and growth in non-cash expenses, such as amortization and depreciation. Any one of these factors or the cumulative effects of certain of these factors may result in significant fluctuations in our results of operations. This variability and unpredictability could result in our failure to meet internal expectations or those of securities analysts or investors for a particular period. If we fail to meet or exceed such expectations for these or any other reasons, the market price of our shares could decline.
We cannot guarantee that our capital allocation strategy, which may include share repurchases and dividend payments, will be fully implemented or that it will enhance long-term shareholder value. In fiscal year 2019, our Board of Directors approved an amendment to our stock repurchase program, increasing the total authorized purchase program to $3.70 billion, in the aggregate. As of December 28, 2019, the total available for repurchase under the amended program was $1.68 billion. The repurchase program does not have an expiration date and we are not obligated to repurchase a specified number or dollar value of shares. Additionally, during fiscal year 2019, we commenced a quarterly cash dividend program. While we expect to pay a cash dividend on a quarterly basis, future declarations of such quarterly cash dividends are subject to approval by the Board of Directors and the Board of Directors' determination that the declaration of dividends are in the best interests of Cerner and its shareholders. Either or both of our repurchase or dividend programs may be suspended or terminated at any time and, even if fully implemented, may not enhance long-term shareholder value.
Our business could be negatively affected as a result of any future proxy fight or the actions of activist shareholders. Proxy contests or related activist activities could adversely affect our business for a number of reasons, including, but not limited to, the fact that responding to proxy contests and other actions by activist shareholders can be costly and time-consuming and can create perceived uncertainties as to our future direction and governance that may result in the loss of potential business opportunities and may make it more difficult to attract and retain qualified personnel, business partners,
customers and others important to our success. Any future proxy contest or activist activities could also cause our stock price to experience periods of volatility. Further, if a proxy contest or a related settlement results in a change in the composition of our Board of Directors it could, in certain circumstances, give third parties certain rights under our existing contractual obligations, which could adversely affect our business.
Our Directors have authority to issue preferred stock and our corporate governance documents contain anti-takeover provisions. Our Board of Directors has the authority to issue up to 1,000,000 shares of preferred stock and to determine the preferences, rights and privileges of those shares without any further vote or action by the shareholders. The rights of the holders of common stock may be harmed by rights granted to the holders of any preferred stock that may be issued in the future and issuances of preferred stock could be used to delay or hinder a change of control of the Company.
In addition, some provisions of our Certificate of Incorporation and Bylaws could make it more difficult for a potential acquirer to acquire a majority of our outstanding voting stock or otherwise effect a change of control of the Company. These include provisions that provide for a classified board of directors, require advance notice of stockholder proposals at stockholder meetings, prohibit shareholders from taking action by written consent and restrict the ability of shareholders to call special meetings. We are also subject to provisions of Delaware law that prohibit us from engaging in any business combination with any interested shareholder for a period of three years from the date the person became an interested shareholder, unless certain conditions are met, which could have the effect of delaying or preventing a change of control.
Risks Relating to Forward-looking Statements
Statements made in this report, the annual report to shareholders of which this report is made a part, other reports and proxy statements filed with the SEC, communications to shareholders, press releases and oral statements made by representatives of the Company that are not historical in nature, or that state the Company's or management's intentions, hopes, beliefs, expectations, plans, goals or predictions of future events or performance, may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the "Exchange Act"). Forward-looking statements can often be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology, such as "could," "can," "should," "will," "intended," "continue," "believe," "may," "expect," "hope," "anticipate," "goal," "forecast," "plan," "guidance," "opportunity," "prospects" or "estimate" or the negative of these words, variations thereof or similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance or results. They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. It is important to note that any such performance and actual results, financial condition or business, could differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, those discussed in this Item 1A. Risk Factors and elsewhere herein or in other reports filed with the SEC. Other unforeseen factors not identified herein could also have such an effect. Any forward-looking statements made in this report speak only as of the date of this report. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect changed assumptions, the occurrence of unanticipated events or changes in our business, results of operations, financial condition or business over time.
Market and Industry Data
This annual report on Form 10-K may contain market, industry and government data and forecasts that have been obtained from publicly available information, various industry publications and other published industry sources. We have not independently verified the information and cannot make any representation as to the accuracy or completeness of such information. None of the reports and other materials of third party sources referred to in this annual report on Form 10-K were prepared for use in, or in connection with, this annual report.