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Epic UGM, Elise Gets an E, and Open Evidence’s Perfect Score
August 21, 2025
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Together with
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“If you see a snake, kill it. Don’t form a committee on snakes.”
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Epic CEO Judy Faulkner
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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.
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- Elise Gets Its E: EliseAI closed a massive $250M Series E funding round to automate the two H’s driving 40% of spending for the average American: housing and healthcare. The startup’s AI agents support medical practices with patient scheduling, intake, and front-desk operations, while also helping property managers handle leasing, maintenance, and resident engagement. Mixed messaging aside, if your AI can tackle the clunkiest industry, why not have it tackle the second clunkiest?
- OpenEvidence Scores 100%: OpenEvidence’s latest model just became the first LLM to notch a perfect score on the U.S. medical licensing exam. For what it’s worth, human doctors average about 70% on the test, but that doesn’t mean that they should pack up their stethoscopes. OpenEvidence pointed out that the USMLE is a better gauge of medical education than a clinical yardstick, and attached the model’s step-by-step explanations for each question to help future physicians understand the reasoning behind each answer.
- TigerConnect Acquires eVideon: TigerConnect scooped up smart room technology company eVideon in a move “to unify healthcare communications across the care continuum.” By integrating eVideon’s tech into its clinical communication suite, TigerConnect plans to enable new solutions that better support bedside, virtual, and hybrid care models. The combined platform is geared toward unifying cloud software and intelligent routing to shift the operational burden away from nurses, whether by enhancing existing systems or serving as a complete solution out-of-the-box.
- Innovation at Sutter Health: Rock Health shared an interview with Sutter Heath VP of Innovation, Chris Waugh, that provided a solid overview of his team’s three-lane model to transforming care delivery: advancing new products, empowering employee-driven innovation, and forging strategic partnerships. Waugh dives into “aha moments” from recent projects (securing operational buy-in from the outset), as well as the one word that best describes the future of healthcare innovation (fast, accurate, personalized, empathic… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ).
- HealthEx Record Exchange: HealthEx launched a new interoperability platform designed to give patients real-time access to their complete medical history. The platform uses CLEAR for identity verification and consent before retrieving records through TEFCA exchange with athenahealth and QHINs like MedAllies and CommonWell. HealthEx gives the example of a Medicare patient using the platform after a cataract surgery to coordinate medications between the surgeon and primary care doctor at different hospitals.
- Hospital Margins Improve: Kaufman Hall’s latest report showed that hospital operating margins improved to 3.7% in June (up from 1.9% in May), but there’s still a wide gap between the best and the rest. The highest-performing hospitals have been nimbler on both the revenue and expense sides, whether by “expanding their outpatient footprint, diversifying services, or managing expenses by centralizing some functions.” The report also noted that revenue on a volume-adjusted basis was up, meaning hospitals are actually earning more per patient, rather than just seeing more of them.
- Cognizant TriZetto AI Gateway: Cognizant debuted TriZetto AI Gateway to layer governed GenAI capabilities across its TriZetto portfolio spanning claims, care management, and customer service. Early adopters have reportedly cut “significant time” per care manager case, as well as faster onboarding for claims processors. TriZetto AI Gateway also includes enterprise-friendly capabilities like single sign-on, role-based access controls, and cost transparency.
- FDA Updates Breakthrough List: The FDA updated its list of breakthrough medical devices with data through June, and it included 136 new devices so far this year. That compares to just 165 for all of 2024, while bumping the FDA’s total number of breakthrough designations to 1.2k. Cardiovascular products continue dominating at 243 submissions, and 21 breakthrough devices have gone on to receive marketing authorization this year alone.
- Stanford + Qualtrics: Stanford Health Care is joining forces with Qualtricx to develop AI agents that translate predictive insights into timely actions to improve the patient experience. The collaboration combines “Qualtrics’ deep human understanding with Stanford’s clinical and operational leadership,” which will apparently allow the duo to ensure patients make it to their appointments and eliminate conflicting care instructions.
- AMA AI Policy Guide: The AMA put out a great resource for health systems looking to implement effective AI policies throughout their organization. The Governance for Augmented Intelligence toolkit is an eight-step module co-developed with Manatt Health that guides leadership from the first steps of establishing an AI governance structure through organizational readiness, vendor evaluations, and AI launches.
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- Navina Ranks #1 Best in KLAS for Clinician Digital Workflow: KLAS ranked Navina’s AI copilot #1 for Clinician Digital Workflow in its 2025 Best in KLAS report. Navina’s AI copilot empowers the entire workflow from the exam room to the back office with a holistic solution for improving outcomes, physician satisfaction, and performance under value-based care. Discover why Navina is the market-leading clinical intelligence platform.
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