Epic

Today we welcomed nearly 1000 experts from around the world to the Open@Epic conference where we shared new ways to connect with Epic. The goal: easier patient-driven app connections and an elevated app developer experience. Here are some highlights:  - MyChart Central gives patients a single sign-on and the ability to share data from multiple organizations with the apps of their choosing - Increased MyChart Connectivity using the Bluetooth Generic Health Sensor spec for easier connections with patients’ home devices - The Clarity Data Model is now available for app developers to license  - More Public APIs to further facilitate meaningful data exchange - A Five-Step Guide to help new developers bring their ideas to life - 40+ Developer Playbooks highlighting recommended workflows & tech for common data exchange patterns - Expanding Sandbox Testing Capabilities for developers to generate test data and review API call results https://lnkd.in/euDCJwCA

An industry first: Quest’s nationwide lab network will use Epic’s integrated system—bringing faster results, simpler scheduling, and clearer insights. For providers, standardized data across Quest’s network will bring greater transparency into the testing process and results that are easier to interpret and share with patients. A single comprehensive test list for providers across the country will make results easier to understand and trend. And after a test is ordered, MyChart will make it simpler for patients to find and schedule visits. https://lnkd.in/ePNepfcM

Mount Sinai Medical Center has become the first organization to implement the Spanish-language version of Art, the AI for clinicians.     Art works to reduce administrative burden by using generative AI to draft suggested replies to MyChart messages. Art is designed to lower the time it takes to respond to patients, and providers can still review and edit messages before sending.    Nearly a third of Mount Sinai’s patients speak Spanish as their primary language, so it's no surprise that they’re playing a pivotal role in advancing AI support for multilingual care as collaborators and first adopters of this new version of Art. By making digital communication more accessible and inclusive, they are delivering more personalized care and building trust with their Spanish-speaking patients.    Read more: https://lnkd.in/ev2yyVgV

For patients living with axial spondylarthritis (axSpA), the road to diagnosis—an average of 8 years—is long and painful, marked by worsening back pain and the possibility of irreversible damage.   Physicians at University Hospitals in Cleveland asked a simple question: what if we could spot patients with axSpa sooner?   Now they are using MyChart to do just that. Patients with a history of back pain receive a short questionnaire that screens for axSpa symptoms. High risk patients are encouraged to schedule an appointment with a UH rheumatologist, helping them get access to specialized care sooner, leading to earlier diagnosis and better patient outcomes.   Read more: https://lnkd.in/gK5_6YY7

Happy National Day of Encouragement 💪 Go get ‘em tiger.  

MyChart’s new AI billing agent is here and is already helping patients better understand their medical bills and payment options by displaying receipts, generating itemized bills, and helping them make payments and apply for financial assistance.     Since the feature’s recent launch at Rush University System for Health, patients have already had more than 3,000 conversations with the billing assistant. Helping patients find answers on their own also helps Rush increase efficiency—reflected in a 50% reduction in billing customer service messages.     This is just the beginning of what Emmie, the virtual assistant that helps patients, will be able to do. 

Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center developed a custom model using Epic’s Cognitive Computing Developer Platform to identify patients with heart failure at a risk of 30-day readmissions, drawing on risk factors such as substance abuse and age. They incorporated the model into a care path to surface in-workflow decision support for clinicians, helping the highest-risk patients get additional resources like high-priority referrals.    Patients at the highest risk of heart failure got the care they needed with mortality rates decreasing by 6%. ZSFG also reduced their 30-day readmissions rate by 14.3% helping them meet readmission rate targets and retain federal funding.     Read more: https://lnkd.in/gPFd2_u8 

Families waiting months for specialty care face uncertainty and stress. Limited staff resources and high demand for specialty services mean that families face extremely long wait times—at Kennedy Krieger Institute, 237 days on average. To address this, Kennedy created a program called START (Screening Triage Access and Referral Team) to help address the issue. Staff meet with patients' families virtually to determine the child’s care needs. All the information that the family provides is turned into a part of the child’s electronic record, helping staff determine early on what type of care will provide the best benefit for the child. Since implementing the START program, wait times for both medical and nonmedical appointments at Kennedy Krieger have been reduced by nearly 50%, increasing patient access. Increased usage of telehealth programs can help hospitals remove barriers, reduce delays, and deliver meaningful patient outcomes. Read more: https://lnkd.in/gsyVyedx 

Comet is a new form of healthcare intelligence designed to help clinicians, health systems, and patients make more informed decisions. By predicting what is likely to happen next in a patient’s journey, Comet estimates risk of disease, length of stay, treatment outcomes, and more. Comet has learned from more than 100 billion patient medical events to calculate likely futures. The story: https://lnkd.in/gf9YZcUS The paper: https://lnkd.in/e8kXKpSG