An organization has to keep with the times if it wants to succeed.
During the “Cool Stuff Ahead” session at this year’s Epic Users’ Group Meeting, multiple leaders discussed how the Verona, Wisconsin-based vendor is doing just that.
Sumit Rana, senior vice president of research and development, took the audience on a “tour” of what his company has been working on, from revenue cycle progressions to population health strategies.
One of the biggest announcements of the session was that Epic’s App Orchard marketplace is now live. Through it, third-party developers can showcase their apps and learn about Epic’s APIs. There are currently 15 apps on the orchard, according to the website.
The vendor is also focusing on ways to engage patients.
As far as telehealth is concerned, Rana noted that Epic is adding on-demand video visits.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
It’s also working on bringing MyChart to devices like Google Home and Amazon Echo. Numerous presenters demonstrated these capabilities (which are under development) during the session.
Though these skills are exciting to see, how real are they? Is Epic showing off more than it has actually created?
Christopher Longhurst, CIO of UC San Diego Health, an Epic customer, said no.
While some of what was shown was conceptual, he said he knows Epic is working on Amazon Alexa skills.
Longhurst noted, “This company does a good job of showing things that are actively in development, and not just slideware,” or something that works on a slide but not elsewhere.
During “Cool Stuff Ahead,” Epic also turned an eye to the power of the cloud.
“The cloud isn’t new,” senior vice president Stirling Martin said. “It’s just a fancy name for someone else’s computer.”
Currently, Epic hosts data from 41 hospital customers in its cloud, he added.
The vendor has an underground primary data center on campus, as well as a secondary data center (as a disaster recovery site) in Minnesota. It also has an in-house operations center, where a team monitors activity.
“We bring a strong security focus to our hosting,” Martin, who was fittingly clad in a blue suit with white clouds on it, said. “Whether you’re hosted by Epic or not, security is something we can all work together on.”
This movement to the cloud, Longhurst noted, is a step in the right direction for health systems. “Running a data center is not a core competency for a hospital,” he said.
Epic President Carl Dvorak closed the session with a compliment to audience members: “It’s a wonderful global community that’s being built with your contribution.”
Photo: bernie_photo, Getty Images
