While Epic regularly picks up health system clients from other EHR vendors, the company says it has only ever lost one customer.
And that organization came back a year later.
“I think they thought that the other [EHR] system might be better for them, and they tried it and it wasn’t, and they came back,” Epic founder and CEO Judy Faulkner told “Freakonomics Radio.”
She said health systems — and patients — appreciate the interoperability of Epic, and providers report that they can save money on application costs by using what’s in the EHR.
When “Freakonomics Radio” host Stephen Dubner told her that physicians he knows have a “slightly negative” view of Epic because of usability issues, Ms. Faulkner said the company gets new customers because physicians have worked elsewhere, are comfortable with Epic and want their new health systems to adopt the EHR.
“Even though it’s in no way perfect, it’s better, in their opinions, than what else is out there,” she said in the April 24 episode. “I think that a lot of the problems with our software is that they have to type to get the data in. And in fact, that was a government requirement at one point that it couldn’t be put in by a scribe.”
Her company has released its own AI scribe that uploads notes directly to the EHR, and Epic is integrated with other ambient documentation vendors.
Conversely, Epic sometimes has to reject potential customers. “We don’t want a client not to be successful,” Ms. Faulkner said on the podcast. “And if we think they’re not going to make it, like, let’s say, they’re too small, and the expense and the work effort would be too great, we’ll say no to them.”
But all is not lost. A provider organization might grow big enough to eventually get Epic on its own, or partner with other rural organizations. Or it may link up with a larger health system’s Epic platform through the Community Connect program. Or its state might buy Epic and distribute it to small, safety-net facilities.
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