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A skit featuring Epic System employees at the company\u2019s annual User Group Meeting illustrated how customers might benefit from its new cast of AI agents.<\/p>\n
Michael L. Millenson<\/p>\n
Is electronic health record giant Epic Systems thinking about giving direct \u201cpower to the patient\u201d without going through a provider? Maybe not immediately, but in discussions about artificial intelligence and data democratization in the carefully scripted opening remarks of Epic\u2019s annual Users Group Meeting, there were a couple of tantalizing hints.<\/p>\n
Epic\u2019s customers today are providers. While KLAS estimates<\/a> the Epic EHR covers 44% of U.S. hospitals and 57% of all hospital beds, the company is increasingly adding providers ranging from rural clinics to dental groups. When looking at the company\u2019s strategy, it\u2019s essential to remember that Epic did not go from its first UGM, consisting of \u201cone folding table with just a few people,\u201d in the words of founder and chief executive officer Judy Faulkner, to being a $6.7 billion company drawing more than 20,000 in-person UGM attendees without paying close attention to those customers\u2019 needs.<\/p>\n Helping Providers Help Patients<\/p>\n In that context, when Faulkner declares that Epic\u2019s number one goal is to \u201chelp patients be healthy,\u201d what she means is helping providers accomplish that goal with Epic\u2019s help \u2013 if they want it. For instance, while Epic boasted that its patient-facing MyChart has added an AI-enabled agent named Emmie \u2013 the AI agent for physicians is \u201cArt,\u201d as in the \u201cart of medicine\u201d \u2013 each customer decides which MyChart capabilities to enable.<\/p>\n Moreover, this is a carefully considered patient-centeredness. Emmie \u2013 as a skit featuring Epic employees dressed as colorful AI agents illustrated \u2013 is designed to answer common questions more reliably than general-use chatbots. That, in turn, is meant to free up physician time (a second Epic goal is helping physicians \u201clove their jobs\u201d), avoid the hazards of patients turning to general-purpose chatbots and improve organizational productivity (Epic\u2019s third goal is keeping health care organizations financially strong). <\/p>\n Those gains, though, aren\u2019t free. As Becker\u2019s Hospital Review reported<\/a>, Emmy\u2019s AI capabilities, like other AI enhancements Epic presented<\/a>, come with a charge for use of AI \u201ctokens.\u201d Emmie\u2019s bottom-line impact on hospitals will vary depending on the breadth and depth of patient usage, so it\u2019s difficult to predict. <\/p>\n An Epic \u201cJoke\u201d<\/p>\n The reality is that AI is already allowing patients to find, create, control, and act upon an unprecedented breadth and depth of personalized information outside the traditional care system. Nor can the traditional care system always count on being part of the health relationship, as I noted in an article<\/a> for the Petrie-Flom Center at Harvard Law School. For example, a review of breast cancer apps<\/a> published 3 years ago found that even then about one-third of them used individualized, patient-reported health data obtained outside traditional care settings.<\/p>\n Faulkner, who\u2019s described her parents as peace activists, dropped a hint that she understands \u201cthe times they are a-changin\u2019,\u201d as Bob Dylan famously sang. When listing the company\u2019s different EHR versions, she mentioned \u201cmaybe someday Chirp for the ring.\u201d<\/p>\n An Epic spokesman told me this was a \u201cjoke.\u201d If it was a clumsy attempt at humor, I suspect it was motivated by underlying anxiety about competition from the popular Oura smart ring. Oura announced in June that its Oura Health Records will make it simple for users to bring EHR data from a variety of providers into the Oura system, making the individual Oura user, not the traditional Epic customer, the informational hub. “Make America healthy again,\u201d in that case, starts with each individual, not each provider.<\/p>\n Other AI platforms are also trying to take advantage of data democratization. As the traditional care system ponders whether being \u201cpatient-centered\u201d with Emmie will bust their budget, consumer-facing AI that enables \u201cpatient-directed\u201d care continues to expand.<\/p>\n Patient-Directed Care<\/p>\n