Epic Systems Corporation is an American healthcare software vendor based in Verona, Wisconsin. Its specialty is bringing together medical information and administrative processes in an environment shared by professionals within a healthcare facility or network. Operating in the United States and several international markets, the company sells software infrastructure whose deployment entails a long-term commitment from its clients. Its corporate website is epic.com.
A company built around the medical record
Epic was founded in 1979 by Judy Faulkner, a computer scientist trained at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. From the outset, the company focused on organizing health data. It gradually expanded its offering to meet the needs of medical practices, hospitals and large healthcare systems. Having remained privately held, it maintains a development model independent of the stock markets.
Its history tracks the transition from paper records to electronic health records, accelerated in the United States by public policies encouraging digitization. The Verona campus, known for its themed buildings, serves as its main base.
Software connecting care, management and patients
At the core of Epic’s offering is an electronic health record that brings together medical histories, prescriptions, test results and clinical reports, among other information. Around this foundation, the vendor offers applications for different medical specialties, appointment scheduling, billing and facility management. The aim is to enable teams to work with consistent information throughout the care journey.
With MyChart, patients can view their results, communicate with their care providers or manage their appointments, depending on the services enabled by their healthcare facility. Care Everywhere facilitates the exchange of records between healthcare organizations, including with certain third-party systems. Epic also develops Cosmos, a collection of de-identified clinical data from participating organizations, used for research and analysis.
This integration does, however, require substantial deployment projects: data migration, process adaptation, user training and maintenance. Choosing Epic is therefore as much an organizational transformation as an IT purchase.
What comes next?
Epic is gradually integrating artificial intelligence into its software, notably through its collaboration with Microsoft. Intended uses include assistance with drafting messages and summarizing clinical information. Their value depends on their reliability, their integration into care providers’ workflows and the maintenance of appropriate human review.
The other ongoing challenge is interoperability: enabling information to circulate without compromising its security or patient privacy. For Epic, the next step is to make better use of the data already available while limiting the documentation burden. Its ability to open up its ecosystem and demonstrate tangible gains for teams will be decisive.