Epic Systems founder and CEO Judy Faulkner told audiences at the company's annual Users Group Meeting that the healthcare industry is adrift at sea because of challenges like provider burnout, staffing shortages, and provider and customer satisfaction, The Cap Times reported Aug. 23.
"Things have washed away, healthcare staff have left, hospitals have closed, important services such as maternity have closed, access to many services has slowed down considerably — appointments may take months," she told the audience. "But we're going to make our new healthcare world better than it was before."
The CEO said that Epic is looking to address these problems by providing more training with software systems, connecting millions more patient records to data systems, and using generative AI to reduce provider workload.
Ms. Faulkner highlighted a few of the company's recent milestones, one being Epic's move to offer ongoing training for workers struggling with its software, as well as launching Lyceum, a training program to help medical and nursing students learn its software.
The company is also looking to expand its databases of patients so that sharing health information for research and treatment purposes becomes easier. This initiative is called Look-Alikes.
Look-Alikes matches patients who have unidentified conditions with others who share similar symptoms. The program aims to provide more information or potential treatments for the conditions, according to the publication.
The EHR vendor is also working with Microsoft on several generative AI integrations.
With generative AI tools being integrated into Epic's software systems, the company aims to save providers time.
Currently, the company is using generative AI-based summarization of recorded conversations between physicians and patients, as well as using the technology to create first drafts of reports and using it to search medical and research databases.