If there’s any single firm that understands or ought to perceive the worth of well being information and its significance in sufferers’ lives, it’s Wisconsin-based EHR firm Epic.
And but, whereas the corporate introduced a complete host of future AI efforts final August, together with a digital companion for sufferers known as Emmie, it was OpenAI — which introduced ChatGPT for Well being late final week — that has really given individuals the ability to question their medical data and achieve insights. Anthropic is saying an identical functionality for Professional and Max customers of its Claude generative AI platform. Like Epic, different corporations that demonstrated an understanding of that broad affected person want additionally missed the boat.
However in an interview on Friday, Epic’s chief medical officer pushed again on the notion that this was a “missed alternative” for the EHR firm.
“I might categorize it, as a substitute of a missed alternative, as thoughtfully developed over a number of years on prime of different non-AI MyChart growth and AI that’s really going to be extra considerate and tuned to your medical historical past and your private medical care,” declared Dr. Jackie Gerhart, additionally a working towards household doctor and vice chairman of medical informatics.
Gerhart, who has been with Epic for seven years, and one other Epic R&D professional took some pains to explain how the corporate is creating the capabilities of Emmie, the digital concierge, deeply embedded inside the EHR and capable of not solely deal with easy queries like “create an train plan”or “clarify my lab outcomes” but in addition nudge you to do the issues that you must do for higher well being.
“So one of many Emmie options we launched final 12 months, additionally round February or March, which is it appears to be like on the physician’s directions from prior appointments or admissions and creates actionable duties for the affected person. So whenever you, as a affected person, log in, it should inform you that, ‘Hey, these are the 2 duties based mostly in your discharge instruction that that you must maintain monitor of,’” stated Borno Akhter, who has spent the final 14 years at Epic and is presently main AI efforts as a software program developer staff lead.
And that’s the elementary differentiator in Gerhart’s thoughts between ChatGPT for Well being and what Epic is cooking up.
“I feel the expertise that you simply may get with coming into one thing right into a ChatGPT could be that you simply’re capable of get info again, but it surely additionally requires you to enter info in and form of be the forger and the curator of the totally different items of data, after which additionally know the place to go for motion and for follow-ups,” she defined. “And I feel two key issues which might be totally different right here is we’re not simply trying just for informing sufferers, we’re really taking a look at how we may help them to take motion.”
This turns into notably clear in when an individual undergoes a process. If that affected person logs on to MyChart, Emmie can alert them to issues they should do.
“So the concierge will really additionally stroll you thru some fairly complicated workflows like checking in for an appointment, like coping with postoperative appointments and with the ability to actually have that journey be laid out for you based mostly on precisely the operation that you simply had executed, for instance. So as a substitute of claiming, ‘I had knee surgical procedure, what ought to I do subsequent?’ you don’t even must ask. It anticipates what it’s that you simply may want,” Gerhart defined.
In different phrases, Epic’s wager is that Emmie (when its options grow to be absolutely out there and when your supplier decides they wish to pay Epic for this AI performance) shall be a way more sturdy device as a result of it lives inside the EHR, is aware of extra about you medically than perhaps you do and may direct you to carry out duties along with scheduling an appointment or answering your medical questions. To this point the early adopters have been Rush College System of Well being in Chicaho, Ochsner Well being in New Orleans and Lehigh Valley Well being Community in japanese Pennsylvania (now a part of Jefferson Well being)
She and Akhter basically imagine such a functionality ought to stay contained in the EHR, the place nearly all of affected person information resides. Not surprisingly Gerhart gently threw some shade on OpenAI’s declaration that ChatGPT for Well being is HIPAA compliant, despite the fact that it resides exterior the EHR. OpenAI has additionally declared {that a} affected person’s medical information wouldn’t be used to coach its studying fashions.
“I haven’t seen that they’ve efficiently executed the identical certification that an EHR-first firm has to do to grow to be a HIPAA-covered entity, and so I feel that also stays to be seen, and it does beg the query. It is usually free too. And so I’m at all times curious after I’m placing info of my very own medical care into one thing that’s free, what’s taking place to it and what the enterprise mannequin is there,” Gerhart famous.
Listed below are a few screenshots depicting how Epic envisions Emmie (story continues beneath):
Customers shall be additionally capable of snap a photograph of their insurance coverage card and add it by means of the MyChart app and Emmie may assist reply questions on copays and different insurance-related questions. Individually, it should additionally be capable of pull in information from wearables by means of Apple HealthKit and Google Match, Gerhart stated.
“There’s additionally a brand new Bluetooth commonplace the place you’ll be able to join straight from that machine to MyChart. So not but, however perhaps sooner or later, you’ll see totally different units on the shelf that say MyChart enabled or straight capable of join by way of Bluetooth with MyChart,” she famous.
And therein lies the rub.
A number of of the slides on the presentation that Gerhart shared had dates. One stated “November 2025” however Akhter stated these options are nonetheless a “month or two” away. One stated “November 2026.” One other merely stated “Future.”
Does “thoughtfully developed,” as Gerhart described Epic’s AI efforts with its digital companion, essentially must imply gradual? Improvements in healthcare should be deliberate given the stakes — everybody appreciates that. Nonetheless, one can’t assist however surprise — given the pent-up demand that folks have and the experience that conventional marquee healthcare corporations possess — why improvements can not occur sooner.
