Neal Patterson

Neal Patterson General Information

Biography

Mr. Neal Patterson was a Co-Founder and served as Chairman of the Board & Chief Executive Officer at Cerner. He was an Angel Investor. Today Cerner is the world's largest independent health information technology company with $3.4 billion in revenues in 2014 and more than 21,000 associates worldwide. In 2015, Cerner was ranked by Forbes as one of the "World's Most Innovative Companies" and by Fortune as one of the "World's Most Admired Companies." Widely respected for his vision and strategic thinking, Patterson has a unique ability to anticipate and articulate how information technology will transform health care. Starting with a single laboratory information system in 1979, by the mid-1980s, Patterson was investing in creating a suite of fully integrated, clinically focused commercial health care applications. Cerner entered the 1990s with a first of-its-kind application set built on a common platform with real-time interactive decision support. In the mid-1990s, Cerner invested significant resources to rebuild the platform on client-server technology using a person-centric data model. During his multi-decade tenure as CEO, Patterson has led Cerner to invest more than $4 billion in R&D of health IT, and the solutions Cerner has designed are deployed at more than 18,000 health care facilities in more than 30 countries. As a public company, Cerner has outperformed the broader markets since its inception and today is listed on the S&P 500 and NASDAQ-100 indexes. Patterson is co-founder and serves on the executive board of the First Hand Foundation, a non-profit foundation that provides assistance to children with critical health care needs. He serves as a Lifetime Director for the 116-year-old American Royal Association celebrating agrarian lifestyles and values, and he gives time to support the development of other entrepreneurs. He and Cerner co-founder Cliff Illig, along with others, are co-owners of Kansas City's Major League Soccer franchise, Sporting KC. He earned a bachelor's degree in finance and master's degree in business administration from Oklahoma State University.