By MICHAEL MILLENSON
A Rock Well being write-up of this year’s Epic Users Group Meeting captured the unreal intelligence vibe with a play on the names of three new AI chatbots rolled out by the nation’s dominant digital well being report 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 handle 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 shouldn’t be an agent of affected person autonomy. Its function is to assist Epic prospects (well being techniques 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 manner it’s #PatientsUseAI, however that use is analogous to the AI algorithms deployed by Netflix. When you might marvel at their energy of personalization, they’re by no means going to let you know that one of the best film on your specific curiosity is harbored over at Hulu and, by the way in which, even should 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 this kind of 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 – can be rolled out over the course of 2026 and past.
Right here’s Epic’s introduction of Emmie and Art from its LinkedIn account:
Knowledgeable by their chart and linked units, Emmie is designed to help sufferers between visits. Whether or not it’s explaining take a look at ends in easy-to-understand phrases, suggesting subsequent steps, or guiding sufferers by way of open-ended conversations about their well being, Emmie makes it simpler for sufferers to remain on prime of their well being and stroll into the examination room with a transparent image.
On the clinician aspect, Artwork is gathering knowledge from Emmie to get the physician the knowledge they want earlier than the go to even begins. Artwork is designed to cut 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 putting orders or verifying prior authorization necessities.
That Rock Health analysis urged that the actual significance “could also be much less the operate and extra the channel,” since shoppers are way more keen to share well being knowledge with their supplier – on this case by way of Epic’s MyChart – than with a tech firm (similar to an AI vendor). “By capturing affected person questions, selections, and symptom-checking,” Rock Well being famous, “Epic beneficial properties visibility into data shoppers may hesitate to share with a generalist tech firm. The EHR big has already signaled that this knowledge will feed again into [its] instruments.”
Or as Epic did not say, “We empower our prospects. 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 Right now, veteran tech journalist John Lynn sniffed out the actual schedule for all Emmie’s promised pro-patient wonders. In accordance with Lynn (presumably from Epic itself),
- proactive outreach and pictures is coming in March, 2026
- energetic engagement in November, 2026
- future screenings arrive someday in 2026 (no month given).
Invoice fee, scheduling talents utilizing SMS (texting) and a voice agent are all “coming sooner or later.”
As I commented on the Epic LinkedIn publish, “How about patient-reported end 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 Hain, Epic’s senior vp of analysis and improvement, who performed a outstanding function on the assembly, however received no reply. (To be honest, possibly he took some trip time after an intense few weeks.)
In a recent STAT First Opinion that took up the subject of autonomy, I asserted that true knowledgeable consent means physicians ought to be obligated to tell sufferers what Epic’s Cosmos system says concerning the seemingly outcomes of therapy for people with their medical profile. These predictions come from a database drawing on a mind-boggling 15.7 billion affected person encounters. However sufferers ought to be capable to entry that details about totally 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 be capable to “predict the long run” for sufferers. (For a deep dive into Cosmos, I like to recommend the posts of veteran medical informatics expert Mark Braustein.)
Faulkner did what any good businessperson would do. She spoke about how her firm’s product would allow an necessary section of consumers, clinicians and well being techniques, to supply higher care. What these prospects 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 & a daily THCB Contributor. This primary appeared within the “Patients use AI” Substack
