Epic is going to allow select third-party vendors to work more closely in its electronic health record platform, and one of the first participants is calling it a “stamp of approval” from the company.
Epic’s Partners and Pals programs are scheduled to be introduced during the EHR company’s annual user conference in Verona, Wisconsin, next week, a company spokesperson confirmed.
Clinical documentation company Nuance and survey software company Press Ganey will be announced as the first “partners” while generative artificial intelligence company Abridge as the first “pal.” Partners will be established firms while Pals will be “early-stage product” companies.
“It’s an Epic stamp of approval,” Abridge CEO Dr. Shivdev Rao said. “You’ll see our logo on their website as a recommended [third-party vendor] who they can endorse because they can more deeply integrate with us.”
In a statement, Epic distanced itself from Roa’s “stamp of approval” characterization.
“Because of the breadth and diversity of our customer base, we don’t make broad recommendations on which vendor will meet the specific needs of each healthcare organization,” Epic said. “These relationships are close collaborations focused on promising technology and a deeper relationship to help them be successful as they work with our provider organizations.”
The company declined to share details on how companies will be selected for participation.
A spokesperson for Press Ganey declined to comment. Representatives from Nuance did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The vendor program is one element in how Epic is changing its third-party integration strategy, a spokesperson said.
In December, Epic said it was shutting down its app market and overhauling how customers interact with third-party applications. A month later, the company launched Connection Hub, an online directory where vendors can self-report if they’ve connected into Epic’s application programming interface.
Both Press Ganey and Nuance announced partnerships with Epic earlier this year. In March, Press Ganey said it was integrating its patient experience data into Epic’s customer relationship management and patient portal systems. Nuance, which is owned by Microsoft, said in June that it was connecting its Dragon Ambient eXperience Express generative AI product, which summarizes and enters conversations between clinicians and patients directly into EHRs, directly into Epic.
Rao said Abridge has been working alongside Epic for the last few months to integrate its generative AI documentation solution into the company’s clinical workflows. The solution can generate real-time summaries of patient conversations with providers and structure the data the way a provider would want it, Rao said.
“All of the clerical work that’s taking so much of the provider’s time is around the encounter,” Rao said. “It’s the work that you do to prepare for the visit, the work that you do to document the visit and all the work that you have to do after the visit…that’s what we’re building against, together with Epic.”
