Epic eyes new AI features to consolidate stranglehold on US EHR business

Epic Systems used its annual Users Group Meeting to outline a wave of new software at its 1,670-acre campus in Verona, Wisconsin. Company leaders said roughly 200 AI features are in development to help patients, clinicians, and insurers.

On Tuesday, Judy Faulkner, Epic’s 82-year-old CEO, leaned into the science-fiction theme, stepping out in a purple wig, neon green shoes, and an iridescent vest reminiscent of Buzz Lightyear from “Toy Story.”

Speaking to thousands of health-care executives in an 11,400-seat underground auditorium, she described a plan to match human judgment with machine support. As reported by CNBC, Faulkner said, “We are combining the intelligence and curiosity of the human being with the investigative capabilities of gen AI.”

Epic ranks among the country’s biggest private tech firms and is widely recognized for its electronic health record (EHR) platform.

An EHR keeps a patient’s medical history in digital form and is continually updated by clinicians; the technology underpins much of today’s U.S. care delivery.

Epic’s software competes with Oracle Health (formerly Cerner). According to the company, its products are used by 280 million Americans, and many patients know Epic through the MyChart portal.

Last week, Epic introduced MyChart Central, which will let patients log in to MyChart with one set of credentials instead of maintaining a separate username and password for each health system they visit.

Faulkner said the update should also ease work for providers. “You’ll spend less time handling patient calls and resetting passwords,” she said in her keynote. “Demographic changes like address need to be added only once.”

Epic’s Emmie AI assistant will guide patients in MyChart portal

Epic is adding a built-in helper for patients as well. The always-on Emmie assistant will answer questions about lab results, propose appointment times and suggest screenings that patients can discuss with their doctor.

Over a three-hour program, Faulkner and other executives also introduced two more assistants, Art and Penny, and walked through features planned for the next year and beyond.

Art is aimed at clinicians and is designed to act as an active AI colleague, the company said. It will anticipate information a doctor might need, surface trends such as blood pressure over time, update a patient’s family history and place orders. Art will also draft clinical notes, a closely watched capability ahead of the event.

So-called AI scribes, automated documentation tools, capture visit notes in real time as clinicians conduct and record encounters, provided the patient agrees. Interest in scribes has grown as healthcare leaders try to reduce burnout and administrative work. The space has drawn sizable venture backing, with firms like Abridge and Ambience Healthcare securing hundreds of millions.

Epic leverages long-term Microsoft partnership with AI focus

Epic says it is co-developing the AI charting capability alongside Microsoft. The companies have worked closely for roughly two decades, and Microsoft’s DAX Copilot product is already popular within the scribing market.

“We’re proud to be collaborating with Epic to explore how we can bring our core Dragon ambient AI technology to Epic’s new AI Charting capability to further improve care delivery,” Joe Petro, corporate vice president of Microsoft Health & Life Sciences said in a statement.

Penny focuses on the business side of care. Epic said the assistant can generate appeal letters for denied insurance claims and help speed medical coding by serving up suggestions. Faulkner said those two features are already live.

Epic said it is building a set of proprietary foundation models, called Cosmos AI, based on this data, and launched the Cosmos AI Lab to help researchers and data scientists learn more. Executives said the models could be used to predict a timeline of potential medical events, such as readmission risk or a future heart attack.

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