Epic Systems

Epic Systems Corporation
Private
Industry Health informatics
Founded Madison, Wisconsin, United States (1979)[1]
Founder Judith Faulkner
Headquarters Verona, Wisconsin, United States
Key people
 Judith R. Faulkner, Founder & CEO[2]
Carl Dvorak, President
Products EpicCare Ambulatory, EpicCare Inpatient, EpicCare Stork, Care Everywhere, Resolute Hospital Billing and Professional Billing, Cadence, Willow, OpTime, ASAP, Cupid, Radiant, Prelude, MyChart, EpicCare Link, Beacon, ClinDoc, Grand Central and Beaker
Revenue $1.77 billion (2014)[3]
Number of employees
 9,000+ (2015)[4]
Slogan Do good. Have fun. Make money.[5]
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.[6]

History

Epic Systems Campus in October 2010

It was founded in 1979 by Judith R. Faulkner.[7] Originally headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin, Epic moved its headquarters to a large campus in the suburb Verona, Wisconsin in 2005 [8] where it now employs more than 9,000 people. In 2015, it plans the fifth phase of expansion with five new buildings each planned to be around 100,000 square feet.[6]

Product and market

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.[9] 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.[10] In total, Epic has 315 customers. This includes 69% of Stage 7 U.S. Hospitals, 71% of children's hospitals, and 83% of Stage 7 Clinics.[11]

One hundred percent of customers that are live with Epic's EHR are also live with Care Everywhere, Epic's health information exchange software.[12] 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.[13] Epic says the yearly cost for an average-sized hospital is around $5,000 a year.[12] Shortly after a senate hearing that examined challenges of exchanging electronic health records, Epic, together with other major software vendors announced that it would suspend the fees.[14] 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,[15] chose Epic Systems for its electronic records system.[10] Among many others, Epic provides electronic record systems for Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, the Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins Hospital, The Mount Sinai Hospital,[10][16] and Yale–New Haven Hospital.

UK experience

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.[17][18]

After 2.1 million records were transferred to it, it developed serious problems and the system became unstable.[19] Ambulances were diverted to other hospitals for five hours and hospital consultants noted issues with blood transfusion and pathology services.[20] Other problems included delays to emergency care and appointments, and problems with discharge letters, clinical letters and pathology test results.[18] Chief information officer, Afzal Chaudhry, said "well over 90% of implementation proceeded successfully".[17]

In July 2015 the BBC reported that the hospital's finances were being investigated.[21] In September 2015 both the CEO and CFO of the hospital resigned,[22] and problems with the clinical records record system which were said to have compromised the "ability to report, highlight and take action on data" and to prescribe medication properly were held to be contributory factors in the organisation's sudden failure.[23]

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. ↑ Conn, Joseph (March 10, 2015). "Faulkner funds foundation to keep Epic private". Modern Heathcare. Retrieved February 6, 2016.
  4. ↑ Jeff Glaze - Wisconsin State Journal. "Epic Systems draws on literature greats for its next expansion". madison.com.
  5. ↑ Akanksha Jayanthi. "Epic decoded: An inside look at life and corporate culture at the center of the health IT world". beckershospitalreview.com.
  6. 1 2 Glaze, Jeff (January 6, 2015). "Epic Systems draws on literature greats for its next expansion". Wisconsin State Journal. Retrieved January 23, 2015.
  7. ↑ Eisen, Marc (June 20, 2008). "Epic Systems Corporation: An Epic timeline". Isthmus. Retrieved February 20, 2009.
  8. ↑ Boulton, Guy (August 24, 2008). "Epic Systems’ $300 million expansion tangible sign of success". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Retrieved January 28, 2016.
  9. ↑ Moukheiber, Zina (March 4, 2013). "Behind Epic Systems, A Low-Key Health IT Company Called InterSystems". Forbes. Retrieved June 8, 2014.
  10. 1 2 3 Freudenheim, Milt (January 14, 2012). "Digitizing Health Records, Before It Was Cool". The New York Times. Retrieved September 26, 2014.
  11. ↑ "Epic". Epic Systems Corporation. Retrieved May 29, 2015.
  12. 1 2 Sullivan, Mark (December 8, 2014). "Saying Epic is a Closed System is an Oversimplification". Venture Beat. Retrieved January 23, 2015.
  13. ↑ Creswell, Julie (September 30, 2014). "Doctors Find Barriers to Sharing Digital Medical Records". The New York Times. Retrieved January 23, 2015.
  14. ↑ Caldwell, Patrick (October 2015). "EPIC FAIL. Digitizing America's medical records was supposed to help patients and save money. Why hasn't that happened?". Mother Jones. Retrieved October 2015.
  15. ↑ "Kaiser Permanente CEO on saving lives, money", USA Today, October 23, 2012. Retrieved December 21, 2014.
  16. ↑ "Electronic Medical Records at The Mount Sinai Medical Center Shown to Greatly Improve Quality of Care". Retrieved 9 April 2015.
  17. 1 2 "Addenbrooke's Hospital paperless system's 'significant problems' reported". BBC News. November 24, 2014. Retrieved December 21, 2014.
  18. 1 2 "'Major incident' declared for flagship IT project". Health Service Journal. 25 November 2014. Retrieved 23 December 2014.
  19. ↑ "The NHS’s chaotic IT systems show no sign of recovery". The Guardian. December 21, 2014. Retrieved December 21, 2014.
  20. ↑ "Addenbrooke’s consultants reveal eHospital concerns in letter to management". Cambridge News. 11 December 2014. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
  21. ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-33735417
  22. ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-34249646
  23. ↑ "Addenbrooke's and Rosie hospitals' patients 'put at risk'". BBC News. 22 September 2015. Retrieved 3 October 2015.

External links

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