Epic and Oracle Health made waves in the first half of 2024 by incorporating artificial intelligence further into their offerings and forging strategic partnerships with healthcare organizations and industry alike.
Who is poised for the best second half of the year?
Over the last year Epic continued to increase its market share, now installed in 39% of acute care hospitals in the U.S. Oracle Health is in second place with 23.4% of hospitals and Meditech holds 16%. More than half of all hospital beds in the U.S. are covered by Epic, while Oracle Health has 23.8% of hospital beds.
And Epic shows no signs of slowing down. In recent months, New Brunswick, N.J.-based Saint Peter's Healthcare System, South Charleston, W.Va.-based WVU medicine Thomas Hospitals and Rockledge, Fla.-based Health First all announced plans to install Epic. Health First noted it anticipates $160 million on the transition over two years.
Epic hosted its first ever European Group Meeting in May, mirroring the U.S.-based event held in Verona, Wis., at the company's headquarters every year. At the European meeting, the company revealed plans to strengthen its AI team, which now has more than 60 significant AI development projects underway. A few of those projects include:
- Predictive modeling for early interventions
- AI conversational assistants
- Revenue cycle automation
- Patient flow predictions and capacity forecasts
Looking ahead, Epic has announced plans to add a data tool for personalized medicine this summer that will leverage the company's data lake, Cosmos, to provide more targeted insights into treatments and outcomes. Cosmos has data from more than 1,415 hospitals, 33,000 clinics and 11.4 billion patient encounters within its platform.
Epic as the market leader is in a strong position. But Oracle Health has a lot planned as well.
Larry Ellison, co-founder and chair of Oracle, said he thinks the company can surpass Epic by expanding its network beyond hospital and provider customers. He pointed to working with governments around the world, payers and medical device companies to automate functions and grow the company's network.
Oracle extended its $16 billion EHR contract with the VA earlier this year, adding 11 months to the deal. The company also entered into an IT partnership with AtlantiCare in Atlantic City, N.J., and has been hard at work updating and rebranding the legacy Cerner systems.
HealtheIntent, now known as Oracle Health Data Intelligence, was equipped with generative AI for efficient care management and improved performance. The system has pre-built clinical quality analytics as well, and aims to help organizations optimize reimbursements. Cerner's Millennium is now called Oracle Health EHR and has a new integration to monitor EHR access and elevate security.
Seema Verma, Oracle Health's general manager, said the company is growing from an EHR-focused business segment to capture clinical documentation, healthcare data intelligence and cybersecurity functionality.
In mid-June, Oracle rolled out a new AI-powered clinical documentation tool focused on its ambulatory care customers. The tool uses automation and voice commands to draft notes into the EHR, and was able to save an average of four and a half minutes per patient for physicians at Billings (Mont.) Clinic and Covenant Health in Tewksbury, Mass.