Epic Systems

Epic Systems provides Electronic Medical Records (EMR) software to hospitals in the USA. It was founded in 1979 and is still privately-held. Although it only has around 170 customers, these tend to be large and prestigious hospitals systems like Cleveland Clinic, Kaiser Permanente and Palo Alto Medical Foundation.

Products include MyChart patient portal software. This is used  by 2.4 million patients across the USA (source: Early experiences with personal health records). MyChart has rich functionality that enables the patient to review most of the contents of the medical record, except for progress notes. The patients can view their diagnoses, active medications, allergies, health maintenance schedules, immunizations, test results (including graphical display), radiology results, appointments, and demographics. In many cases, relevant health educational resources are automatically linked to key terms or phrases in the patient’s medical record, such as a diagnosis of diabetes. In addition, patients can communicate with the physician office to request an appointment, request a prescription renewal, update demographic information, update immunization status, or update a health maintenance procedure. The patient can also request advice from an advice nurse or from their own physicians.

The most popular features are access to lab test results and communication with physicians (source: The missing link: bridging the patient-provider health information gap).