Tag: epic

Innovation Shouldn’t Have to Wait for Epic

Posted on by Jason Barry

It’s always tough to pass up a hitpiece from STAT assassins Casey Ross and Brittany Trang, especially when their mark is the biggest EHR in the world.

Inside Epic’s Empire. That’s the name of the new series covering Epic’s “uncompromising business tactics” that have crushed competitors, thwarted innovation, and put a single business in charge of the patient data needed to power medical breakthroughs.

Ross and Trang get right down to business. They set the stage with Epic’s total dominance:

  • Epic pulls in $6.5B+ a year.
  • It holds records on 8 in 10 Americans.
  • It owns 55% of inpatient beds, up from just 21% in 2012.

Some might see that as a problem. Executives at 12 companies on Epic’s own app marketplace say it undercut them by withholding data interfaces and specs, spreading rumors about their products, or charging fees in the hundreds of thousands a year.

  • Epic declined interviews but countered with its top KLAS rating for integration, triple the connections that federal law requires, and billions of annual data exchanges.

The gate is locked from the inside. Vendors wanting deep integration sign an agreement acknowledging Epic might build software similar to theirs, forcing them to choose between IP protection and distribution.

  • Certain medication and problem-list data sit behind proprietary interfaces Epic keeps private, and public APIs can reportedly book an appointment but not cancel one.
  • Epic’s new connectors let its AI agents read and write to third-party apps, but STAT couldn’t confirm whether third-party agents get the same into Epic.

Exhibit A is Abridge. In 2023 Epic made the then-scribe startup its first Partners and Pals member and took an equity stake, then rival scribe vendors say their Epic business evaporated. 

  • Abridge raised a boatload of capital and grew to hundreds of health systems.
  • Epic cashed out, shuttered the program, and announced its own scribe.
  • Dayton Children’s CIO J.D. Whitlock summed it up by saying Epic clones have most of a third party’s features, costs less, and integrates better… because it’s Epic.

There’s another side of the coin. Former Epic employee turned Health API Guy Brendan Keeler argues Epic isn’t uniquely evil, just dominant enough that the bar for sharing data should be higher. 

  • Another former Epic employee says the friction is deliberate, built to keep vendors from corrupting the record, with developer frustration an acceptable price.

The Takeaway

At the end of the day, it’s tough to hate the player and not the game. Epic is running a business, and it’s running it pretty well given the rules that it’s given. Then again, it might also make the rules.

ChatGPT for Healthcare, Now Available in Epic

Posted on by Jason Barry

The day has finally come. OpenAI just integrated ChatGPT directly into Epic, and the doomsayers were out in full force predicting the instant demise of thousands of startups. 

Here’s what happened (and what didn’t). ChatGPT for Healthcare can now synthesize notes, labs, meds, and specialist documentation to answer questions for clinicians – either by bringing chart context into ChatGPT, or by running ChatGPT in the chart itself.

  • That means that clinicians can easily summarize charts, review labs, and prep for visits without leaving the EHR. Good stuff, not earthshattering.
  • That doesn’t mean that Epic suddenly gave OpenAI access to its 325M patient records, or that ChatGPT can start updating patient records. The connection is “currently” read-only, so nothing’s getting written to the record… yet.

OpenAI didn’t stop there. A new Healthcare Public Data plugin adds structured connectors to nine official sources – including ClinicalTrials.gov, CMS Coverage, DailyMed, and PubMed – for verifying precise information like trial eligibility criteria and coverage policy versions.

  • In early testing on 4,300 responses across 27 clinical use cases, physicians rated 99.1% of the responses as safe. That was apparently good enough for UCSF to sign on as the pilot partner.

The timing talks. Epic spent UGM positioning Ergo as its intelligence layer that sits on top of the chart. Two weeks later, OpenAI began offering its own insights inside that same chart.

  • Agent Factory was also in the UGM spotlight, with 120 AI features slated for wide availability in 2027. Those features definitely aren’t all read-only.
  • Epic still hasn’t said a single word about the OpenAI partnership. 

The peanut gallery talks louder. The thing that most people seem to agree on is that every startup pitching “AI that plugs into your EHR and saves clinicians time” just got steamrolled.

  • Where’s that leave us? “You have to go really clinical.” A model that reads a chart isn’t a workflow-specific product that can act on one. It’s time to specialize and make things happen.

The Takeaway

OpenAI and Epic just officially made chart summaries a commodity. That isn’t the end of thousands of startups, but it will be if they don’t roll up their sleeves.

Blue Ribbons and AI Agents at Epic UGM

Posted on by Jason Barry

Epic’s “Meet Me at the Midway” User Group Meeting had everything a county fair needs: a cowgirl CEO, a blue-ribbon AI roadmap, and a giant elephant in the room.

Ergo was the main attraction. Judy took the stage in full cowgirl costume to deliver her keynote on “healthcare intelligence,” which now has a name, a November ship date, and a live pilot at Ochsner.

  • Ergo is an AI system that surfaces intelligence across Epic’s Art clinical copilot, Emmie patient-facing assistant, Penny revenue cycle agent, and Cosmos research database depending on what each visit calls for.
  • Judy shared an “Ergo visit” example where Art pulled relevant info from the chart ahead of time, Emmie talked with patients in MyChart before the visit, and the two combined to generate discussion topics for the physician. Déjà vu.

Curiosity stole the show. Cosmos Curiosity is a new generative model trained on 320M deidentified patients and 23B encounters that simulates what happens next for a patient – such as health trajectories, whether they’ll be readmitted, and why.

  • Twenty orgs are already validating Curiosity ahead of a March 2027 release inside the EHR.

Scale got the most spotlight.

  • Agent Factory is off to a hot start and now lets health systems shape 120+ out-of-the-box AI features, or build their own agents for specific use cases without having to code them from scratch.
  • Chart with Art is now live across 70+ specialties and 60+ orgs, and Penny is autonomously coding radiology and ED visits.
  • Real-time prior auth checks are already live at four systems, with UnitedHealthcare, Aetna, Network Health, and 16 more payors testing.

Now for the elephant. Although UGC brought plenty of big news, Epic was grabbing headlines for all the wrong reasons in the months leading up to the event. 

  • The FTC is reportedly probing Epic’s non-competes and third-party data blocking, the same allegations behind other lawsuits that might sound Particul-arly familiar.
  • Epic’s heir apparent Sumit Rana, AI chief Seth Hain, and Care Everywhere architect Dave Fuhrmann all left in the month before UGM, which may have been because they lost an internal debate over building-vs-partnering on AI. Epic denies it happened.
  • Judy is 83, succession is still an unspoken question, and the closest thing to an answer is R&D lead Seth Howard saying that Epic “would never” hire an outsider.

The Takeaway

Judy likes to say that “health IT is more complex than rocket science.” That doesn’t seem to do much for employee retention, but it also didn’t stop Epic from shipping 84 new AI tools in just the last year. UGM 2026 should keep the pace if a few elephants can be addressed. Ergo, stay tuned.

Epic Dominates, But Don’t Discount Competitors

Posted on by Jack Troy

Epic’s empire has reached, well, epic proportions. The software goliath’s grip on health systems gets tighter by the day, but a new report from startup studio Redesign Health doesn’t count out David just yet. Pencils up, founders. 

Redesign Health talked to the big wigs. Here’s a quick look at the survey group. 

  • A total of 112 execs at U.S. health systems served by Epic gave their thoughts. 
  • Two-thirds get final say on clinical and administrative purchasing, and the rest hold at least some official sway in these decisions. 

Most seemed pretty content with Epic. The platform has a quality edge to some, though its sheer size looks to be influencing things. Blink twice and we’ll call Oracle.

  • A huge majority (71%) described their system as “Epic-first.”
  • 80% expect prioritization of Epic going forward vs. 6% for external solutions. 
  • Epic is winning because of easy integration (50%), superior capabilities (48%), being “good enough” vs. alternatives (48%), and cost effectiveness (47%).

There’s room for competition. Execs placed the likelihood of another vendor matching Epic in various arenas on a one-to-five scale, and were generally open to outsiders. 

  • The greatest opportunities lie in imaging (3.52), quality tracking (3.51), and discharge and transfers (3.51).
  • Epic is most entrenched when it comes to patient flow (3.16), interoperability and integration (3.21), and non-imaging clinical decision support (3.22). 

But if you come at the king, you best make sure your product rocks. To ditch Epic, decision-makers must be confident they’ll get major results, and fast. 

  • Nearly half (49%) said external vendors must show significantly higher ROI and/or better outcomes, while just 18% grade Epic and its competitors on the same scale. 
  • It tracks that 63% ranked easy integration as important, with faster time to value close behind at 59%.

The Takeaway

Redesign Health’s report on Epic could serve as a roadmap for other companies to score some victories in the battle for market share. Those looking for one simple trick that Epic doesn’t want you to know will be disappointed, though. The broad strokes lesson is to make a product so good it’s irresistible. 

Epic Shakes Up Scribe Market With AI Charting

Posted on by Jason Barry

The wait is over. Epic’s scribe has arrived, and it’s packing a lot more than ambient notes.

“AI Charting” goes beyond transcriptions. The fully built-in feature not only listens during patient visits and drafts notes, it also queues up orders based on the conversation.

  • The initial release allows clinicians to personalize the note structure using voice commands (Ex. asking to format the history of present illness as a bulleted list).
  • Epic is positioning AI Charting as the killer app for its Art clinical copilot, which also has a pre-visit Insights tool that’s apparently already being used 16M times per month.

Distribution is king. Over 40% of U.S. hospitals are on Epic, and an AJMC study from just last week showed that two-thirds of those hospitals have already adopted ambient AI.

  • AI Charting is breaking onto the scene through one of healthcare’s biggest distribution channels, and Epic has a ton of levers it can pull with pricing and bundling to start stealing share (DAX Copilot, Abridge, and ThinkAndor accounted for ~80% of Epic hospitals in the recent study).
  • Rather than charging a per-user-per-month fee like most ambient AI platforms, STAT reports that Epic plans to have a separate license for AI Charting, with the price varying by org size and utilization to get the tool in as many hands as possible.

It’s time to differentiate. The race is on for established players to prove they can deliver value that Epic’s integrated approach can’t match.

  • That means tackling problems that are too messy for Epic to touch (Abridge bringing real-time prior auths to the point of conversation), or too specialized for it to get right with so many other plates spinning (Nabla raising the bar for AI safety with world models).
  • Epic is working closely with Microsoft to get new features online quickly, but nailing multiple specialties in countless languages could still prove to be a job that’s better suited for a company with a dedicated focus.
  • Epic might own the “operating system” almost as much as Microsoft owns Windows, but just because MS Paint exists doesn’t mean the world doesn’t need Adobe Photoshop.

The Takeaway

Ambient scribes proved how fast health systems would layer on their own AI if Epic couldn’t keep up, and we’ll now have to wait and see if the cost and experience of Epic’s scribe is enough to compete with the flock of ambient AI innovators dedicated to this problem.

Particle vs Epic: The Lawsuit Moves Forward

Posted on by Jason Barry

For the first time in history, Epic will have to face antitrust claims in court after it failed to dismiss Particle Health’s allegations that the EHR giant has been wielding its monopoly power to stifle competition.

Here’s the overly-simplified version. Particle combines health data from 270M+ patients’ medical records by aggregating “thousands of sources”… sources like Carequality.

  • Carequality is effectively one of the largest health information networks, facilitating data exchange between network members (like Particle) who agree to only query patient data for “Permitted Purposes” such as Treatment, Health Operations, or Public Health Activities.
  • The problem at the heart of the lawsuit arises due to the fact that Treatment is the only purpose that organizations like Epic are actually required to respond to, causing all sorts of companies to warp their true purposes to Treatment-shaped requests.

Particle vs. Epic. Particle’s case alleges that Epic used its EHR monopoly to hamstring competition in the market for “payor platforms,” which allow payors to retrieve patient data to make decisions about care and coverage.

  • Last spring, Epic said that Particle was allowing its customers to inappropriately label their Carequality data requests as Treatment, then proceeded to stop responding to EHR requests from 34 Particle customers.
  • Particle’s lawsuit alleged that Epic trumped up the Carequality accusations in order to block it from serving its payor platform customers.

Epic filed to dismiss all nine of Particle’s claims. On Friday, the judge sided with Epic on five of the nine claims, dismissing the allegations that Epic maintained a conspiracy to uphold its market dominance, as well as claims of defamation and trade libel.

  • However, the court declined to throw out all three of Particle’s federal monopolization claims, as well as a state claim that Epic had interfered with a business contract.
  • Those claims will move forward into discovery, and Epic will now have to turn over documents that can shed light on whether its practices withstand legal scrutiny.

The Takeaway

Get the popcorn ready. Epic’s motion to dismiss was only partially successful, meaning it will now have to actually admit, deny, or qualify Particle’s remaining allegations. That deadline is quickly approaching on September 16th – then the real legal fireworks can get started.

Healthcare’s Sci-Fi Future at Epic UGM

Posted on by Jason Barry

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and Epic just lit up its sci-fi themed User Group Meeting with enough futuristic new solutions to prove last week’s rumors true – and then some.

The future is now. This year’s event gave us a look at over 160 AI projects currently under development at Epic, including a three-product family set to immediately shake up the industry.

ART is a provider copilot for charting, pre-visit summaries, queuing up orders, and yes – ambient scribing.

  • ART will reportedly be able to provide real-time suggestions during visits, and its highly-anticipated scribe still came as a surprise after Epic revealed that it will be powered by Microsoft when it arrives in early 2026. More on that later.

Emmie is a patient-facing advocate within MyChart that can help with everything from scheduling and reminders to education and navigation.

  • Epic is positioning Emmie as the best place for patients to ask health questions and get answers that are actually grounded in their personal medical history.

Penny is an administrative assistant targeted at revenue cycle management, generating appeal letters, and supporting back-office tasks.

  • There isn’t as much information out there on this one, but Epic doesn’t appear to be shying away from claims and payor workflows.

The EHR is dead, long live the CHR. Judy grabbed even more headlines by announcing that she’s retiring the term “EHR” in favor of “Comprehensive Health Record,” which seems fitting considering the other major announcements that joined the Big Three.

  • Cosmos AI will provide diagnosis and treatment support, as well as discharge planning.
  • MyChart Central will give patients a single login across all sites of care.
  • Flower Pot will expand access to lightweight Epic implementations for smaller practices.

The scribe is real. Now what? Epic’s decision to team up with Microsoft on documentation was pretty unexpected given its 46-year track record of building everything in-house, confirming that the CHR giant would rather bend its core rules than lose market share.

  • Scribes proved how fast health systems would layer on their own AI if Epic couldn’t keep up, and we’ll now have to wait and see if the cost and experience of Epic’s scribe is enough to compete with the flock of ambient AI innovators dedicated to this problem.
  • Epic might own the “operating system,” almost as much as Microsoft owns Windows, but just because MS Paint exists doesn’t mean the world doesn’t need Adobe Photoshop.

The Takeaway

Some call it consolidation. Others call it innovation. Either way, this year’s UGM will probably go down as a key step along Epic’s march toward intergalactic domination. 

AI Spotlight on Epic, Abridge, and Oracle 

Posted on by Jason Barry

Epic, Abridge, and Oracle just gave us a year’s worth of blockbuster AI announcements in three days, and at least one of them was more than speculation and old news.

‘Twas the week before UGM, and the rumor-mill has been overheating with reports that Epic might finally launch its own EHR-native scribe at its upcoming User Group Meeting.

  • Over 40% of U.S. hospitals are already on Epic, which means its scribe would have access to one of the biggest distribution channels in healthcare even if its UX and performance aren’t best-in-breed (which they won’t be).
  • That means about 100 ambient AI startups could be about to find out why scribing is a feature – not a product – and the race will be on to differentiate through other capabilities like RCM and specialty-specific tuning.

Abridge doesn’t plan on being commoditized. Less than 24 hours after Epic’s scribe leaked, Abridge unveiled the exact type of solution that’ll define who survives the incumbent squeeze: real-time prior authorization at the point of conversation.

  • Abridge is co-developing the new solution alongside Highmark Health, a Pittsburgh-based payvidor that operates both a multistate payor division and the 14-hospital system Allegheny Health Network.
  • Integrating Abridge’s ambient AI platform across Highmark’s entire organization will allow patients to get approval for necessary treatments before they even leave the office, a perfect example of how “scribes” can be truly transformative beyond just transcripts.

Oracle couldn’t let Epic and Abridge have all the fun. It decided to “usher in a new era of AI-driven health records”… by reintroducing us to the same AI EHR it unveiled last October.

  • Although mostly a PR stunt to grab headlines ahead of UGM, the new EHR includes several features that underscore where the AI puck is heading, including a native scribe, voice-first navigation, and agents to support clinical workflows.
  • These features are also a good list of use cases where startups might not have a lot of juice left to squeeze after EHRs start bringing them in-house (and prior auths just so happen to be the last thing Oracle wants to get its hands dirty with).

The Takeaway

Native scribing is (very likely) on its way to Epic, Abridge is giving patients the gift of time with instant prior auths, and Oracle is banking on voice for the future of EHR navigation. What a week for digital health.

Epic Announces Launchpad to Fast-Track GenAI Deployment

Posted on by Jason Barry

Epic is looking to accelerate generative AI adoption with the surprise unveiling of Launchpad, a new program designed to help provider orgs “move from idea to operational gains in a matter of days.” 

Launchpad’s grand unveiling included little more than a LinkedIn post, but Epic AI Director Sean McGunigal told Fierce Healthcare that the program includes guided AI implementations and a fast track to live workflows.

Here’s the general outline of how Launchpad works.

  • When an organization joins the program, Epic staff shepherds them through any roadblocks they’re facing with active genAI implementations.
  • Epic’s experts will assist with getting genAI use cases configured, turned on, and operationalized – all while establishing appropriate governance structures.
  • Launchpad also includes a starter kit of 10 high-impact genAI applications that can be deployed within days, covering both clinical and operational workflows.

Epic views low AI literacy as one of the biggest barriers to industry-wide adoption, and McGunigal made it clear that Epic will go to great lengths to overcome that hurdle. 

  • “We’ll help coordinate. We’ll get the right stakeholders on the phone and we’ll help this thing along.’ The [genAI] roadblocks tend not to be necessarily performance challenges or end user training. It tends to be the project management-type work.”

MyChart In-Basket Augmented Response Technology – better known as ART – marked the launch of Epic’s first genAI feature in April 2023.

  • Since then, over half of Epic’ customers have started using at least one of its genAI features, and it’s making some big investments to pump that number up.
  • Epic has over 100 new genAI use cases in the works, spanning everything from lab and imaging recommendations to fully automated patient-agent interactions, and Launchpad is going to ensure that providers have the support they need to adopt them.

The Takeaway

As Epic gears up for a tidal wave of its own AI roll outs, healthcare orgs are going to need customized support, implementation kits, and governance guidance to take full advantage. Epic just showed us that it’s willing to build its own Launchpad to make that happen.

Storytime at Epic UGM 2024

Posted on by Jason Barry

Epic’s “Storytime” User Group Meeting is officially a wrap, and the number of updates shared at the event would be hard pressed to keep with the theme and fit in a children’s book.

CEO Judy Faulkner donned the podium dressed as Mother Goose to tell the tale of Epic’s recent advances, AI roadmap, and even a “25-to-50-year” company plan.

It wouldn’t be a 2024 UGM without AI hogging the spotlight, and the EHR behemoth certainly delivered on that front. Highlights included:

  • Epic currently has two killer use cases for AI. Medical scribes (186 user orgs), and draft responses to portal messages (150 user orgs). Those counts reflect the number of “user” orgs, but it wasn’t clear how many have done system-wide deployments.
  • Epic is actively working on over 100 new GenAI solutions, ranging from auto-populating forms and discharge papers to delivering evidence-based insights at the point of care.
  • Epic Cosmos’ Look-Alikes AI tool is now live at 65 sites, helping identify rare diseases by cross-referencing symptoms in its database of over 226M patient records and connecting physicians with kindred cases.

The teasers stole the show, and physicians (or payors!) have plenty to look forward to if Epic can deliver.

  • An upcoming Best Care Choices for My Patient tool will provide treatment recommendations at the point of care based on what worked / didn’t work for similar patients. NYU Langone and Parkview Health are already test-driving the solution.
  • A new Payor Platform is now available to all health system customers, with AI features to streamline prior auths, manage claims denials, and connect provider directories. Epic is also exploring how to cut out clearinghouse middlemen by sending PA documentation directly to payors.
  • By the end of next year, MyChart’s GenAI will be able to pull in test results, medications, and other patient details to better customize draft messages and help automatically queue up orders for labs and prescriptions.
  • A Teamwork staff scheduling application is sparse on details but on the way “soon.”

The Takeaway

Given how much time clinicians spend in the EHR and the treasure trove of data it holds, it isn’t a surprise that Epic has become an integral component of its health systems’ AI strategy. That said, user group meetings are meant to excite user groups, and we’ll know soon enough how many of these announcements were just Storytime.

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