Epic has entered into big partnerships this year with Amazon Web Services and Google, and added capabilities to the MyChart app. The company also joined the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement to improve health data interoperability and launched a new life sciences program to streamline clinical research studies and trials.
Judy Faulkner, CEO of Epic, outlined the company's strategy to create a nationwide health IT infrastructure during the company's User Group Meeting in August, to connect different parts of healthcare. However, the bold new vision for Epic doesn't mean the company will stray from the strategy that's made it dominant in the health technology space.
Ms. Faulkner said in a Nov. 7 blog post that she gets emails at least weekly inquiring about whether Epic will buy or invest in smaller companies.
"We have never invested in another company's product and don't intend to," she wrote. "It would be a distraction."
She said any acquired software would be another company's "key product" and would have a different code, terminology, design and more. Epic's software is internally developed to focus on the patient and patient data, and products developed on the outside wouldn't be the same, she argued.
"Users would know they left one world and are in another," Ms. Faulkner wrote. "Acquisitions of key products might be quick, but in the end, they are not what is best for the user."