As reported this past Monday by Becker’s Health IT, the CEO of EPIC, Judy Faulkner, provided five predictions concerning healthcare in America in a recent interview with Business Insider.  As many of our readers are aware, Epic is one of the giants of the electronic medical record (EMR) industry.  Here is a snapshot of Ms. Faulkner’s prognostications:

Smaller Facilities on the Brink

Ms. Faulkner expects more hospitals of modest size to face “extreme financial distress and bankruptcy due to the canceled elective surgeries and appointments due to COVID-19.” The loss in revenue will negatively impact staffing levels, capital expenditures and operating expenditures in the coming months, according to Faulkner.  She further offered that many Epic customers reported “35 percent to 55 percent revenue declines this year.”

Merger Mania

Perhaps as a natural consequence of the prediction listed immediately above, the Epic CEO suggested there will be “more mergers and acquisitions due to the financial strain the pandemic placed on healthcare providers.”  She then noted that when organizations consolidate, “typically the smaller provider moves onto the larger provider’s EMR platform.”  However, with the new interoperability rules taking effect in the coming months, it will be easier for health systems to interoperate without switching systems, according to Faulkner.

Mainstreaming Livestreaming

Digital health has become more mainstream in the wake of the COVID pandemic.  According to Ms. Faulkner, her EMR company reported between 50 and 100 times more video visits with patients since the pandemic began, and she expects this trend to continue.  This will include more instances of remote patient monitoring from home.

Data Definitions

“Data definitions are a big problem,” according to the Epic CEO.  According to Ms. Faulkner, “health systems are defining data differently, which makes it impossible to aggregate.”  Accordingly, she predicts that there will, by necessity, be a move to standardize such data sets in the future and that a focus on public health surveillance will be a lasting legacy of the pandemic. She noted some lawmakers use Epic data to decide when to “reopen economies or make other public health decisions.”  Therefore, it will be imperative that health systems agree on standardized data definitions so that the data being used by the government to make life-changing decisions for millions of Americans is as useful as possible.

Increased IT Proficiency

Crises often bring out the very best in people, and apparently that has been the case when it comes to the overall IT response to the COVID pandemic.  In the view of Ms. Faulkner, IT deployments at health systems will become more efficient in the days ahead.  In support of this conjecture, she offered an example involving her own company.  She noted that, during the pandemic, her team worked with providers to redesign the EPIC deployment system so as to (a) make it virtual and (b) do the install in three days.

While it is always helpful to review insights and foresights of industry leaders, the hospital executive and management team must consider such commentary in light of what they are experiencing locally.  Every facility has its own needs, demographics, payer mix, and challenges.  If we can be of assistance to you as you work through the issues you’re facing, please feel free to reach out to us at info@miramedgs.com.  We want to be your source for business solutions.