Epic Systems

Epic Systems Corporation
Private
Industry Health informatics
Founded Madison, Wisconsin, United States (1979)[1]
Founder Judith R. Faulkner
Headquarters Verona, Wisconsin, United States
Key people
 Judith R. Faulkner, Founder & CEO[2]
Carl Dvorak, President
Products EpicCare Ambulatory, EpicCare Inpatient, Resolute, Cadence, Willow, OpTime, ASAP, Cupid, Radiant, Prelude
Revenue $1.2 billion (2011)[3][4]
Number of employees
 5,100 (2012)[3]
Slogan With the patient at the heart.
Website epic.com

Epic Systems Corporation is a privately held healthcare software company. According to the company, hospitals that use its software hold medical records of 54% of patients in the U.S. and 2.5% of patients worldwide.[5]

It was founded in 1979 by Judith R. Faulkner.[6] Originally headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin, Epic moved its headquarters to a large campus in the suburb Verona, Wisconsin in 2005 [7] where it now employs more than 8000 people. In 2015 it plans the fifth phase of expansion with five new buildings each planned to be around 100,000 square feet.[5]

Epic's market focus is large health care organizations. Epic offers an integrated suite of health care software centered on a Caché database provided by InterSystems.[8] Their applications support functions related to patient care, including registration and scheduling; clinical systems for doctors, nurses, emergency personnel, and other care providers; systems for lab technologists, pharmacists, and radiologists; and billing systems for insurers.

Its competitors include Cerner, MEDITECH, Allscripts, and units of I.B.M., McKesson, Siemens and GE Healthcare.[4] In total, Epic has 297 customers, and 70 percent of HIMSS Analytics Stage 7 hospitals use the EpicCare inpatient EHR system. [9]

One hundred percent of customers that are live with Epic's EHR are also live with Care Everywhere, Epic's health information exchange software.[10] A 2014 New York Times article interviews two doctors who say that their Epic systems won't allow them to share data in a way that will satisfy Meaningful Use requirements. Epic charges a fee to send data to some non-Epic systems.[11] Epic says the yearly cost for an average-sized hospital is around $5,000 a year.[10]The RAND Corporation described Epic as a “closed” platform that made it “challenging and costly for hospitals” to interconnect with the clinical or billing software of other companies. Research firm KLAS said Epic’s scores for data sharing were “as good or better than most of the other vendors." Faulkner says Epic was among the first to create rules about sharing health data and a platform to do so, introducing Care Everywhere in 2005 because the US government was not prepared to tackle the problem. The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology produced a 10-year vision and agenda to achieve healthcare interoperability in 2014.

In 2003, Kaiser Permanente, the largest managed care organization in the United States,[12] chose Epic Systems for its electronic records system.[4] Epic also provides electronic record systems for Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, the Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins Hospital, and The Mount Sinai Hospital.[4] [13]

An Epic electronic health record system costing £200 million was installed at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in October 2014, the first installation of an Epic system in the UK.[14] It is described as "well regarded, but relatively expensive".[15] 2.1 million records were transferred to it. Within a short time it developed serious problems and had to be switched to read-only for three hours.[16] The Trust invoked the major incident procedure during that issue, as the system became unstable on the night of 1st November. Ambulances were diverted to other hospitals for five hours. Subsequently hospital consultants highlighted issues with blood transfusion and pathology services.[17] A briefing note sent to local GPs said problems included delays to emergency care and appointments, and problems with discharge letters, clinical letters and pathology test results.[15] However, Chief information officer, Afzal Chaudhry, said "well over 90% of implementation proceeded successfully".[14]

References

  1. ↑ Eisen, Mark (June 20, 2008). "Epic Systems: Epic Tale". Isthmus. Retrieved December 18, 2013.
  2. ↑ Klein, Mike (December 5, 2002). "Epic's Founder Judy Faulkner Speaks on Culture, Business Beliefs, and Recruiting". WTN Media. Retrieved December 18, 2013.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Moukheiber, Zina (April 18, 2012). "Epic Systems' Tough Billionaire". Forbes. Retrieved December 18, 2013.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Freudenheim, Milt (January 14, 2012). "Digitizing Health Records, Before It Was Cool". The New York Times. Retrieved September 26, 2014.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Glaze, Jeff (January 6, 2015). "Epic Systems draws on literature greats for its next expansion". Wisconsin State Journal. Retrieved January 23, 2015.
  6. ↑ Eisen, Marc (June 20, 2008). "Epic Systems Corporation: An Epic timeline". Isthmus. Retrieved February 20, 2009.
  7. ↑ Boulton, Guy (August 24, 2008). "Epic’s expansion". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Retrieved October 15, 2008.
  8. ↑ Moukheiber, Zina (March 4, 2013). "Behind Epic Systems, A Low-Key Health IT Company Called InterSystems". Forbes. Retrieved June 8, 2014.
  9. ↑ Gregg, Helen. "10 Things to Know About Epic". Becker's Hospital Review. Retrieved January 23, 2015.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Sullivan, Mark (December 8, 2014). "Saying Epic is a Closed System is an Oversimplification". Venture Beat. Retrieved January 23, 2015.
  11. ↑ Creswell, Julie (September 30, 2014). "Doctors Find Barriers to Sharing Digital Medical Records". The New York Times. Retrieved January 23, 2015.
  12. ↑ "Kaiser Permanente CEO on saving lives, money", USA Today, October 23, 2012. Retrieved December 21, 2014.
  13. ↑ "Electronic Medical Records at The Mount Sinai Medical Center Shown to Greatly Improve Quality of Care". Retrieved 9 April 2015.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 "Addenbrooke's Hospital paperless system's 'significant problems' reported". BBC News. November 24, 2014. Retrieved December 21, 2014.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 "'Major incident' declared for flagship IT project". Health Service Journal. 25 November 2014. Retrieved 23 December 2014.
  16. ↑ "The NHS’s chaotic IT systems show no sign of recovery". The Guardian. December 21, 2014. Retrieved December 21, 2014.
  17. ↑ "Addenbrooke’s consultants reveal eHospital concerns in letter to management". Cambridge News. 11 December 2014. Retrieved 21 December 2014.

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