By MICHAEL MILLENSON
A Rock Well being write-up of this 12 months’s Epic Customers Group Assembly captured the synthetic intelligence vibe with a play on the names of three new AI chatbots rolled out by the nation’s dominant digital well being file agency. “Epic Goes APE (Artwork, Penny and Emmie),” learn the headline, utilizing the primary letters of the names of chatbots designed for, respectively, clinicians, income cycle managers and sufferers.
Emmie does optimistic issues for sufferers – extra on that in second – however at its core the chatbot is a B2B play, designed to deal with the wants of the hospitals, medical teams and others whose charges have constructed the privately held EHR agency into an estimated $5 billion enterprise.
Emmie just isn’t an agent of affected person autonomy. Its objective is to assist Epic clients (well being methods and doctor practices) present extra and higher companies to their buyer, the affected person, so long as that affected person stays a buyer.
That context is necessary. Sure, in a means it’s #PatientsUseAI, however that use is analogous to the AI algorithms deployed by Netflix. When you could marvel at their energy of personalization, they’re by no means going to let you know that one of the best film on your explicit curiosity is harbored over at Hulu and, by the best way, even when you’re watching tons of applications with medical themes, you’re nonetheless a sofa potato.
I wasn’t current on the gathering at Epic’s Verona, Wisconsin headquarters, however information accounts and LinkedIn postings counsel that, unsurprisingly for any such assembly, there was extra drama than particulars. A lot of what was unveiled and hinted at – the corporate stated it’s engaged on greater than 200 AI functions – will probably be rolled out over the course of 2026 and past.
Right here’s Epic’s introduction of Emmie and Artwork from its LinkedIn account:
Knowledgeable by their chart and linked gadgets, Emmie is designed to help sufferers between visits. Whether or not it’s explaining check ends in easy-to-understand phrases, suggesting subsequent steps, or guiding sufferers via open-ended conversations about their well being, Emmie makes it simpler for sufferers to remain on high of their well being and stroll into the examination room with a transparent image.
On the clinician aspect, Artwork is gathering information from Emmie to get the physician the knowledge they want earlier than the go to even begins. Artwork is designed to scale back administrative burden, assist medical doctors higher perceive their sufferers, and provide context-informed insights. This may take the type of producing pre-visit summaries, taking real-time notes, and even taking actions like inserting orders or verifying prior authorization necessities.
That Rock Well being evaluation prompt that the actual significance “could also be much less the perform and extra the channel,” since customers are much more prepared to share well being information with their supplier – on this case via Epic’s MyChart – than with a tech firm (comparable to an AI vendor). “By capturing affected person questions, choices, and symptom-checking,” Rock Well being famous, “Epic beneficial properties visibility into info customers would possibly hesitate to share with a generalist tech firm. The EHR big has already signaled that this information will feed again into (its) instruments.”
Or as Epic did not say, “We empower our clients. We empower sufferers. We empower ourselves.” Good intentions alone don’t get your product into use by greater than half of all acute-care hospital beds in America, in keeping with a KLAS estimate of market share.
At Healthcare IT At presentveteran tech journalist John Lynn sniffed out the precise schedule for all Emmie’s promised pro-patient wonders. Based on Lynn (presumably from Epic itself),
- proactive outreach and pictures is coming in March, 2026
- lively engagement in November, 2026
- future screenings arrive someday in 2026 (no month given).
Invoice cost, scheduling talents utilizing SMS (texting) and a voice agent are all “coming sooner or later.”
As I commented on the Epic LinkedIn submit, “How about patient-reported final result measures (e.g. Proteus Consortium’s), whether or not from an app linked to Epic (i.e., like Twistle by Well being Catalyst or others) or the affected person’s personal wearables?” I tagged Seth HainEpic’s senior vice chairman of analysis and improvement, who performed a distinguished position on the assembly, however obtained no reply. (To be honest, possibly he took some trip time after an intense few weeks.)
In a latest STAT First Opinion that took up the subject of autonomy, I asserted that true knowledgeable consent means physicians must be obligated to tell sufferers what Epic’s Cosmos system says concerning the seemingly outcomes of remedy for people with their scientific profile. These predictions come from a database drawing on a mind-boggling 15.7 billion affected person encounters. However sufferers ought to have the ability to entry that details about completely different hospitals’ outcomes on their very own.
On the Customers Group Assembly, Epic introduced an extra refinement of Cosmos, with founder and chief government officer Judy Faulkner proudly asserting that the corporate will have the ability to “predict the long run” for sufferers. (For a deep dive into Cosmos, I like to recommend the posts of veteran medical informatics knowledgeable Mark Braustein.)
Faulkner did what any sensible businessperson would do. She spoke about how her firm’s product would allow an necessary phase of shoppers, clinicians and well being methods, to supply higher care. What these clients truly do (or don’t do) for his or her “buyer,” the affected person, with the Epic software program? Evidently “Not my job.”
Michael L. Millenson is president of Well being High quality Advisors & an everyday THCB Contributor. This primary appeared within the “Sufferers use AI” Substack
