Unlocking Business Opportunities: Insights From the Epic UGM
The recent Epic User Group Meeting (UGM) unveiled a flurry of innovations, partnerships, and product enhancements, showcasing the company’s commitment to staying at the forefront of healthcare technology. The theme of this year’s UGM, “Castaway,” mirrored the pace of announcements, drawing parallels with the Fast and Furious movies rather than its island-inspired motif.
Generative AI Transforming Healthcare Interactions
Epic CEO Judy Faulkner’s keynote address highlighted the integration of generative AI across various aspects of the Epic ecosystem. In-Baskets, a critical component of clinician-patient communication, will now benefit from AI-generated response drafts, streamlining the process and enhancing empathy in communication.
Ambient Clinical Notes, powered by Microsoft/Nuance’s DAX solution, mark another milestone. This integration aims to improve the quality and efficiency of clinical documentation, ensuring a more comprehensive and accurate patient record.
One groundbreaking application of generative AI is in explaining medical bills. Through Epic’s Hello World platform, an AI-powered chatbot will soon assist patients in understanding complex medical bills, bridging the communication gap and fostering financial transparency.
Additionally, AI will play a pivotal role in note summaries for both clinicians and researchers, coding and billing suggestions based on medical records, and rare disease research acceleration by identifying patients with similar symptoms.
Revamped Partnership Program – Showroom
Faulkner introduced Epic’s new partnership program, “Showroom,” replacing the app market. This program categorizes third-party vendors into Member Services, Pals, Partners, and Cornerstone Partners, each serving a specific purpose in enhancing Epic’s ecosystem.
Notable Pals include Abridge, offering generative AI for clinical documentation, and Talkdesk, a contact-center-as-a-service platform. These partnerships reflect Epic’s commitment to fostering collaboration with innovative companies that bring new solutions to uncharted territories.
Epic Product Enhancements for Enhanced User Experience
The post-keynote session witnessed a rapid succession of product enhancements, each designed to elevate user experience and operational efficiency.
Slider Dicer NLP layer
The Slider Dicer NLP layer is a revolutionary addition to the Epic ecosystem, empowering researchers and clinicians with a natural language interface for querying data. This innovative feature facilitates seamless communication within the platform, enabling users to interact with the system in a more intuitive and efficient manner.
URL Shortening & Engagement Tracking for Cheers (Epic’s CRM)
Scheduled for release in November, this feature, powered by Hello World, focuses on enhancing customer relationship management (CRM) within Epic. The integration of URL shortening and engagement tracking promises to streamline communication, providing users with improved tools for managing and analyzing customer interactions.
Epic Gallery
Set to launch in November, the Epic Gallery is a document management module designed to simplify the storage and retrieval of both clinical and non-clinical documents. This enhancement aims to optimize workflow efficiency by providing a centralized and organized repository for essential information.
Conversational SMS for Ticket Scheduling
Launching in February, the Conversational SMS for Ticket Scheduling feature aims to enhance communication and scheduling efficiency within the Epic platform. This addition reflects Epic’s commitment to improving user experience by introducing a more dynamic and interactive scheduling system.
Staff Scheduling and Optimization Module
Beginning with Surgeons in November, this module introduces a comprehensive solution for staff scheduling and resource optimization. By focusing on resource utilization, Epic aims to address a critical aspect of healthcare settings, ensuring that resources are efficiently allocated to meet the demands of patient care.
Automatic UI Optimization
Scheduled for 2024, the Automatic UI Optimization feature represents a forward-looking approach to user interface design within the Epic platform. By adapting the system layout based on user behavior, Epic aims to optimize performance and enhance ease of use, providing a more personalized and efficient user experience.
AI for Operational Optimization
Epic’s future plans include leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to optimize operational capacity. This strategic initiative aims to ensure efficient resource utilization within healthcare settings, potentially offering recommendations to surgeons based on real-time resource availability.
Infusion Templates and Scheduling
In the pipeline is a feature that focuses on optimizing resource scheduling through the analysis of past appointment patterns and upcoming patient bookings. This forward-looking addition aims to enhance efficiency in resource allocation and scheduling within the Epic ecosystem.
Optimizing Length of Stay
Future enhancements will prioritize tasks and resources based on past patterns and best practices, contributing to an optimized length of stay for patients.
The Epic UGM showcased not only the company’s commitment to innovation but also its strategic approach to partnerships and product development. As the healthcare industry continues to embrace digital transformation, the insights from this event provide a valuable roadmap for hospitals and digital health companies looking to navigate the evolving landscape. The “epic ugm” has indeed set the stage for collaborative advancements that promise to shape the future of healthcare.
