This week was a big one for Epic — the EHR giant hosted its annual conference at its headquarters in Wisconsin, even after it found itself in the Federal Trade Commission’s crosshairs.
Reports emerged last Friday that the FTC has opened an antitrust investigation into Epic, with several people who work in or advise healthcare businesses saying they have been contacted by investigators as part of a probe into the company. Investigators are reportedly focused on how Epic grants or withholds access to patient data, as well as questioning whether employment agreements restrict Epic employees from joining competing healthcare companies.
In a statement to MedCity News, Epic denied engaging in anticompetitive behavior.
“Epic does more to support standards-based data-sharing than any other EHR vendor. We were the first EHR to connect to TEFCA — the federally sponsored interoperability network — and the first to do standards-based diagnostic image exchange. We publish more than 1,000 APIs and interfaces on open.epic for developers to exchange data with Epic. Nearly 3,000 apps use open.epic resources today,” an Epic spokesperson said in the statement.
Despite the regulatory drama, Epic used its annual event to forge ahead with its AI expansion.
CEO Judy Faulkner unveiled Agent Factory, a platform that lets hospitals build and monitor their own AI agents, as well as Cosmos Curiosity, a predictive tool that draws on the company’s massive de-identified patient database to flag risks like hospital readmission and help clinicians answer population-level health questions.
The company also unveiled a new AI tool that pulls together data to help clinicians prepare for appointments, along with expanded capabilities for Art, Emmie and Penny — Epic’s AI assistants for clinicians, patients and revenue cycle staff, respectively.
As Epic keeps absorbing capabilities once left to standalone vendors, some health tech companies say they aren’t worried.
One health tech executive — Vikram Khanna, chief revenue officer at healthcare AI startup Suki — thinks it’s a mistake to believe differentiation will come from features.
“Everyone can announce the same roadmap, and increasingly they are. The real differentiation will come down to three things: execution, outcomes and architecture. Did you actually build it well? Can you prove it delivers value? And can it work across the entire health system, not just within one technology stack? Features will converge. Execution and outcomes are much harder to copy.” he explained.
Another leader — Tim Showalter, chief medical officer at healthcare AI platform Viz.Ai — argued that clinical AI agents require a level of rigor EHR platforms aren’t necessarily architected to deliver.
“The best health tech companies don’t compete with the EHR — they do what the EHR can’t,” he stated.
For now, Epic shows no signs of slowing down, which leaves the rest of the health tech world to bet that there is still room to compete around the edges of a giant.
Photo: Benjamin Derge/Wikimedia Commons
