Epic says it winnowed its noncompete list to a "few dozen" health IT companies after leadership realized how large the index had grown.
The EHR vendor requires employees to sign agreements that they won't work for certain competitors a year or two after leaving the company. In 2021, however, that noncompete list ballooned to about 4,500 companies, including nine health systems, according to a 2023 Isthmus story.
"For most of Epic's lifetime, we limited the noncompete to a list of about a dozen IT vendors that were direct competitors and about a dozen consulting firms," a company spokesperson told Becker's. "Then for a while that got expanded to a much larger list. When Epic management realized that, the list went back to a much smaller size, which is where it is now."
The list now contains a "few dozen companies within healthcare technology" and is meant to protect Epic's intellectual property, the spokesperson said.
The company is reviewing how an April 23 Federal Trade Commission ban on noncompetes will affect its policy, according to the spokesperson. Dozens of former Epic staffers wrote to the FTC criticizing the company's policy ahead of the decision. "Where noncompetes do not serve the purpose of protecting IP, we agree with the FTC's vote," the Epic spokesperson said. The FTC's ruling is being challenged in court.
Meanwhile, some observers say the ban could end up aiding Epic, which would have other avenues for protecting its trade secrets. Former employees' familiarity with Epic could help the EHR vendor land contracts with their new organizations, Steph Tai, PhD, a professor at University of Wisconsin School of Law in Madison, told Isthmus for an April 30 story. Madison venture capitalist John Neis told the newspaper a prohibition on noncompetes would allow Epic to "attract the most highly skilled talent" because potential hires wouldn't worry about getting stuck with the company.