If you’re on LinkedIn and you work in health IT, then you’ve certainly seen everyone sharing their thoughts, perspectives, and feelings about the recent Epic UGM conference. No doubt it’s a major event when you think about how many users Epic has across the country and the world.
Long time readers will know about my love and affection for user conferences and Epic’s UGM is no exception. Bringing together users is always powerful. Plus, Epic kind of lays out the roadmap for the year at UGM which is always insightful. In fact, Judy started off her keynote talking about how many announcements were made at last year’s UGM and how a large majority of them were completed with many still in progress and only a handful of them were cancelled.
While I’m sure it will never change while Judy is still leading Epic, Verona is not the ideal place for a conference. I met one person who had a 6 AM flight in Chicago (2 hours away). That’s just not safe, but I digress. At least downtown Madison is fun since you see Epic users everywhere you go in Madison at night. Plus, I did get some amazing cheese curds. The rain did put a bit of a damper on things too, but it was only bad the first day I was there.
As press I was able to attend the main opening keynote that I think is called the Cool Stuff keynote where they share all the cool stuff that’s happening. Then, we had a media Q&A with some Epic experts and then we could attend some sessions. Although, I was able to do some video interviews instead of sessions which we’ll share over the next few weeks.
Judy always kicks off the keynote and I heard multiple people say how amazing it is that she’s doing everything she’s doing after having just celebrated her 82nd birthday. There’s no sign she’s slowing down since I think Epic is her passion. Although, she did struggle a bit with a frog in her throat which concerned some.
Kicking off the keynote Judy offered up these efforts behind the work Epic is doing:
- Help clinicians love their jobs
- Help healthcare organizations stay finanically strong
- Help patients be healthy
I’ve heard some online complaints that the patients shouldn’t be third on the list. I don’t believe this list was done in priority order. I think it was just three major goals for Epic and reflects the things they hear most from their customers. While certainly one could argue that Epic could do more for patients, there’s another slide (Side Note: We weren’t allowed to take or share pictures from the keynote, so I can’t share it) that was shown multiple times that shows the patient at the center of everything that Epic does.
After Judy’s opening, Sumit Rana came out to share his perspective on where Epic was heading and how Epic was approaching innovation. Many believe that Rana is the heir apparent to replace Judy as CEO, but that’s all speculation since Judy is keeping that info close to the chest. However, the fact that he came out after Judy is probably a good indication of his importance in the organization.
In Rana’s presentation, he offered a really interesting framework for how Epic is approaching the software they’re building:
- Eliminate
- Automate
- Augment
- Transform
I wish I’d been able to capture all of the examples he gave for each, but I do remember he suggested that prior auth would be a great example of Eliminate since that work doesn’t add any value.
Rana also offered an even simpler way of looking at how Epic is approaching development when he talked about “Software that assists” all the way to “Software that carries out tasks.” I think it’s safe to say that most of the AI in use today is software that assists which is good, but software that can carry out tasks is what will really transform healthcare.
Moving past some of their broader perspectives, here’s a look at some of the bigger items that were talked about on stage at Epic’s UGM 2025 and then I’ll share some quick hit items as well. And my apologies in advance for the length, but I was trying to channel my inner Brendan Keeler (he’s the master of long posts).
AI Medical Scribe – AI Charting – AI Assistant
All the talk of the town going into Epic UGM was rumors that Epic was going to announce their own AI Medical Scribe (Ambient Clinical Voice/EHR AI Assistant) solution to compete with all the other AI medical scribe solutions out there. Turns out that Judy kind of made it a non-event during the keynote by just essentially saying that an Epic native AI charting is under development in partnership with Microsoft and will be available early next year.
I of course needed to know more, so I asked during the media Q&A lunch if this was basically Epic white labeling the Microsoft-Nuance DAX-Copilot (I think it’s officially called Microsoft Dragon Copilot now, but it’s gone through a number of different names) or if they were doing something more beyond what Dragon Copilot offered. I guess they were expecting the question since Epic’s response was to read the following statement:
Epic’s native AI Charting is being developed, and we anticipate that it will be ready for limited use by early next year. Epic is doing the listening, using Haiku and Canto. Microsoft supplies Epic with Dragon Ambient AI technology–transcription and diarization, as well as important note components. Epic then takes all of that to create the final note and visit documentation.
Customers can use other third parties to do Ambient AI as they do today.
Microsoft put out their own announcement on LinkedIn which does kind of describe that Epic is building a new AI charting capability with some Dragon components. I’ll let you read both statements and see what you surmise about what Epic is going to do. Plus, I’ll save my own commentary on what all this means for the AI Medical Scribe space for future articles and podcasts.
However, I was curious if Microsoft was planning to continue to offer DAX/Copilot separately from Epic or if you needed to go through Epic to get it once it launches. Unfortunately, Microsoft’s PR person replied that they didn’t have anything further to share at this time. I assume that probably means they’re still trying to figure it out.
No doubt, we’ll be watching for this to be rolled out next year and will have plenty of discussion about it between now and then.
Cosmos and Cosmos AI
The most forward thinking and potentially transformative announcements at Epic UGM was Cosmos AI. Seth Hain shared how Epic has taken some of the Epic data and essentially created their own LLM. Here’s what it consists of today:
- 8 billion encounters
- 136 billion tokens
- 1 billion parameters
And they’re just getting started. Hain shared that they are publishing a paper with a team from Yale called Generative Medical Event Models Improve with Scale. I haven’t had a chance to look at it yet, but it highlights some of the work they’re doing.
What was most impressive about this LLM was that the models that it created were performing better than many of the machine learning models that were out there already. Plus, this one LLM was able to solve a wide variety of challenges whereas many other models had to be purpose built for very specific situations.
Needless to say it’s early in the development of Cosmos AI, but he gave a great example of how it could be used to assess a patients risk for certain diseases. Could we use that to improve the care that a patient is receiving?
Cosmos AI Lab is coming soon and will be available similar to the way they rolled out Cosmos. Researchers can get access to it and help to shape the ways the Cosmos AI will be integrated into Epic. I’m excited to see what insights we can find when we create an LLM from the vast amount of data available.
Moving beyong Cosmos AI, Cosmos is doing some really interesting things already. Turns out that a database of 300 million unique patients and 16 billion encounters is powerful. Here’s a look at some of what’s available in Cosmos:
- Best care choices – We learned about this last year. It will be available to Cosmos contributors in the Nov 2025 release
- Look-alikes – This was highlighted last year, but is now available to those who contribute to Cosmos. Check out some of the usage numbers:
- 900,000 clinicians are now participating in the Look-Alikes network
- 92% of queries find a match
- 10,700 matches so far
- Rare Disease Growth Charts
- Surgical patient-reported outcomes
- Antibiogram
I was also really intrigued when Sumit Rana suggested that Cosmos could be used to provide guardrails for AI. It makes sense that if AI suggests something, you could check the real world evidence inside of Cosmos to see if the data lines up.
In Judy’s keynote, she also highlighted Epicresearch.org and their efforts to try and publish something new weekly.
Other Epic AI
Moving beyond the hottest AI out there, AI medical scribes, Judy mentioned that Epic is working on 160-200 AI projects (one time she said 160-190). That’s up from 100 AI projects mentioned last year. She also suggested that instead of using the term AI, she preferred to call it Healthcare Intelligence. We’ll see if that branding sticks.
Judy also announced what is essentially three categories of AI solutions with their names:
- Art – We’ve known about Art before, but it’s now expanded to include all their AI assistant solutions for clinicians.
- Emmie – This is Epic’s AI assistant for Patients.
- Penny – This is Epic’s AI assistant for RCM (Revenue Cycle Management) – (Side Note: Judy was tickled at the name Penny)
Art seemes like it’s the most developed of the three and offers clinicians help with the following:
- AI summaries contextualized – Nov 2026
- Digital colleague – Nov 2026
- Review data – Nov 2026
- Take action – Nov 2026
- Real time authorization – Future
- Informed by cosmos – Future
- Chat with Art – Nov 2026
- Easy wrap up – future
- AI chart written notes (See above about AI medical scribes)
Emmie is Epic’s Virtual Assistant for patients and includes the following:
- Proactive outreach and images – Mar 2026
- Future screenings – 2026
- Active engagement – Nov 2026
- Bill pay and payment plans
- Ticket scheduling with SMS
- Rescheduling with SMS
- Voice Agent (Coming in the Future)
Hearing about Emmie. I won’t be surprised if this becomes a kind of LLM for patients that can use their own personal data in a private and secure way as opposed to ChatGPT, Gemini, etc which aren’t secure.
Penny is Epic’s Virtual Assistant for RCM and includes the following:
- Outpatient Denials Appeals AI Assistant
- Autonomous Coding (Coming in Nov 2026) – Starting with ED and Radiology
- Automated Claims Follow-Up (Coming in Nov 2026)
It definitely didn’t look like they were offering a comprehensive look at everything that Art, Emmie, and Penny are able to do and what they’re going to do. Plus, there’s a good chance I missed some items, but at least this gives you a flavor of where their AI assistant efforts are headed.
I do think it was interesting during Sumit Rana’s portion that he offered these suggestions for Epic users when it comes to all of the AI solutions that are heading their way:
- Stay curious and learn new ways to use AI
- Reassess risk tolerance for each area
- Know your pioneers
- Continuously learn and adapt
- Keep up the urgency
New Epic UI
One of the things that I think a lot of people probably missed is that Epic gave a pretty good view at what the future UI of Epic is going to be with most of it rolling out in November 2026. The way it was presented was how AI was being integrated into the flow of an ambulatory visit. It had a kind of patient plan that included the goals for that visit that the doctor walked through. Plus, AI was integrated into the screens to allow for access to the patients record using AI and of course access to various aspects of Cosmos. Epic also previewed a kind of similar revamp of the user interface for nurses on the acute care side as well.
Unfortunately, without images and video, it’s kind of hard to describe everything they showed on screen. However, I think it’s safe to say that Epic’s UI is getting a facelift with AI powering so many elements of the new UI.
On the patient side, they’re still going to have access to all their same MyChart features, but the patient UI is going to change as well. Epic shared that a digital concierge is coming in Nov 2025 which will be interesting for patients. Although, I was more intrigued by the Preventative Care Reminders that Epic is planning to roll out in Feb 2026. They described it as a centralized to do list for patients. No doubt Emmie is going to transform the MyChart interface as well.
New Sofware – ERP, Clinical Trials, and Much More
Probably one of the biggest announcements at Epic UGM was that Epic is going all in on building an ERP designed for healthcare and of course integrated with the Epic EHR (By the way, Judy wants to drop the electronic off EHR since she says it’s redundant now). However, Judy also described their efforts to build a clinical trials platform as well as a wide variety of other solutions.
Here’s a quick look at those two big ones and a number of other solutions on the Epic roadmap:
Epic Ops – A Healthcare-Focused, Natively Integrated ERP
No doubt a lot of customers have been wanting an integrated ERP that worked well with Epic. They highlighted the obvious example of having your supply chain management efforts be integrated directly into the supplies available in Epic (Preference Card). The same is true for things like employee onboarding and scheduling that are useful when you’re scheduling things like ORs in Epic.
This is a big undertaking for Epic. It will be interesting to see how long it takes them to build out all of the ERP functionality that’s needed in healthcare. Their timeline for the initial pieces is out through middle of May 2027. Here’s what they’re currently looking at for a roadmap for the EpicOps ERP with only Teamwork being available today.
- Workforce – Staff Scheduling (Teamwork), Time & Attendance, Credentialing, Human Resources, Payroll
- Supply Chain – Item Catalog, Inventory Management, Procurement, Contract Management, Vendor Management
- Financials – General Ledger, Cost Accounting, Budgeting, Cash and Bank, Accounts Payable
The one I find most interesting is EpicOps for credentialing. That’s a big challenge since onboarding providers is so important, but there are some big companies applying a lot of technology to this problem. It will be interesting to see if Epic can compete with them.
Forward for Clinical Trials Management
Judy commented on many people asking them to create a clinical trials platform and their response was always that there were already platforms out there. However, now they see an opportunity to do something a little different.
- End-to End Clinical Trials in One System
- Get Studies Started
- Run Studies
- Manage Finances
- Available to Early adopters in November 2026
Other New Modules and Software:
- Blood Bank – This was first mentioned last year.
- Cell and Gene Therapy
- Community Registries Platform – This may have gotten the biggest cheer from the crowd. Submitting to registries is so time consuming. Check out this video I did about automating just perinatal risk assessements to see what I mean.
- Diagnostics Image Exchange – Will Epic be at RSNA this year?
- Electronic Fetal Monitoring
- Electronic Prior Auths for Medications – Definitely going to be an interesting space to watch. Every payer needs to address electronic prior auths and I wonder if their answer will be Epic Payer Platform.
- Embryology
- Hello World for Non-Us Groups
- Intelligent Hospital Rooms – I wonder what this will look like, but see the nursing efforts below for some idea. One thing I think we can be certain is that it will be software, not hardware.
- National Provider Directory – Judy mentioned that this project internally was stopped to support the National Provider Directory effort that CMS is leading.
- Occupational Health
- Orthodontics – I wonder who is driving this demand, but it was interesting to hear at Epic UGM how many dentists benefitted from being on Epic. Dentists changed medications 234,000 times in 2024 based on warnings shown in Epic.
MyChart Central
If you follow Epic, then you probably heard that this was coming. In its current iteration, every Epic install has its own MyChart login. If you’re a patient going to multiple locations, you may have dozens of Epic MyChart logins with your data spread across all of them.
Judy announced that MyChart Central will now combine all of your MyChart logins in one place. Users will only have to remember one login to be able to access all of their MyChart data and features across every Epic install. She noted that under this new model, things like demographics for a patient can be updated once and it will be updated at every healthcare organization.
I know we all have a lot of questions about how exactly this is going to work. I also expect some bumps along the way since it’s a pretty big change in how MyChart was originally designed. Plus, hospitals and medical practices love their autonomy and so it will be interesting to see how Epic navigates that. However, I think this is a good step forward for patients who don’t want to remember a dozen MyChart logins.
This is already live in Madison and MyChart Central is planning to roll out in November 2025.
Epic Training
Judy must have found the KLAS Arch Collaborative data really compelling around the correlation between user satisfaction and EHR training (BTW, it is compelling) since she dedicated a large chunk of the keynote to their training offerings. In fact, she had Jenna Timm come out and share about a number of the big training efforts that Epic is offering its users including: Onboarding, ongoing, on the fly
Timm shared how speciality specific training goes well when you go live since you’re training all of the specialists. However, after go-live you may only train someone from that speciality every 6 months. To help with that, Epic has rolled out specialty specific onboarding that includes 106 specialties supported across 360 videos and it seems like they’re just getting started.
Timm also highlighed their Thrive Courses that were estimated to produce a 90 min time savings per week. Epic also has SmartUser courses that focus on Epic efficiency. This includes 30+ free 30-60 min courses that provided an estimated 45 min saved per week, 6% more appointments per day, and 5% less time spend outside scheduled hours. Timm also mentioned the Epic Exemplars program where Epic users can share their experience and insights with the community.
However, the most interesting training item for me was a “What’s New in Epic” feature that help users learn about new features they receive in an Epic upgrade. Also, they’re working on an Ask Epic solution that prompts users to let them know about shortcuts they’re not using.
If you’ve lived through upgrades and training, you can see how useful these will be if done well.
Financial Efforts
I really think that Judy has heard from her customers how they’re struggling when it comes to revenue. Anyone that works in healthcare has heard about it and every healthcare organization is effected. I think that’s probably why Judy spent quite a bit of time focused on various solutions that can help the financial performance of Epic users.
Here’s a few of them I noted:
- Penny – As mentioned above, this new RCM AI assistant will help healthcare organizations financially. If you’ve ever followed the RCM space, you know how much opportunity there is here.
- Cost reduction dashboard – I don’t have a UserWeb login, so I can’t see this dashboard, but Judy said you can view it at http://pulse.epic.com/
- Executive Dashboard – Same issue here, but you can find the executive dashboard at http://exec.epic.com/ She suggested you subcribe to these dashboards.
Epic Expansion Efforts
One of my favorite parts of Epic UGM is hearing all of the creative ways that Epic is looking to make Epic available to more and more organizations including those that were too small to buy Epic before. Judy announced a number of country wide implementations including: Northern Ireland and Singapore. She also shared many State, Province, Territory, and Region Implementations from the following countries:
- Canada
- Australia
- Denmark
- Norway
- Finland
- USA (Washington)
She also suggested that rural was a big focus for Epic and said there were three ways for rural organizations to use Epic:
- Extend your instance with Connect
- Create a state-sponsored shared instance
- Rural organizations work together to create a shared instance
Last year you may also remember that Judy announced Garden Plot that was focused on the 20-80 provider market. That’s still going forward and is available for Primary Care and Ortho with Gastro and Urology coming soon. She went on to announce that along with Garden Plot, they’re also going to offer Orchard for 80-180 provider practices. Plus, they’re considering Flower Plot for practices under 20 providers, but she’s not certain if that will be doable or not.
Other Items Worth Mentioning
AI pricing – When I learned that Epic’s AI solutions were pay as you go, my first response to the CIO who told me was “that’s going to add up quickly.” The good news is that Epic now has a pay as you go option if you want that flexibility and as you test new AI features and they have a new “AI Suite” pricing option. The AI suite is “all you can eat” and is the best option if you have broad adoption of that AI solution at your organization. I’ll be interested to see how they price the suite and if they group AI tools into the packages or not
Online Self Scheduling – Check out the stats article coming out next week when it comes to the growth of online self scheduling in MyChart. However, Epic will be able to automatically generate schedules for providers based on goals like new patients, urgency, and back to backs to help accelerate self scheduling. (Coming in Nov 2025)
Honor roll – Judy was really proud of the honor roll which makes sense. It must be tough to know your software can do so much more and people aren’t using it. This year they did add an honorable mention for those that are working towards honor roll and a new MyChart Honor roll.
Epic’s Staff Are Using AI – Sumit offered 4 areas where Epic is using AI to accelerate the Epic team’s work: Development & Technical Assistance, Research & Analysis, Communication & Collaboration, and Design & Documentation.
Payer Platform – I’m actually a little surprised that Payer Platform wasn’t more of a focus at UGM. Maybe because a lot of Epic users won’t actually use payer platform or be impacted by it. I still think this will be a major focus of Epic and is going to solve some major problems for providers and payers. In fact, I think many payers will look to Payer Platform to address their need to do electronic prior auth.
AI User Engagement Personas – Sumit also offered essentially personas for users and how they feel about AI: Pioneer, Optimist, Dabbler, Reluctant, Skeptic. He suggested that you should engage the skeptics even though they’re a challenge.
Organ Donation in MyChart – This may be one of the coolest things shared at UGM. Epic partnered with Donate Life to encourage organ donation and to allow MyChart users to become organ donors. What a great idea.
Outbreak Detection and Monitoring – This was short on details, but Judy said that they would use cosmos to identify and track disease outbreaks. I’ll be interested to see how quickly they can identify this and I assume they’ll work with public health when an outbreak is happening. One of the journalists at UGM suggested that journalists should get the notifications so they could write about an outbreak early too. I think that’s better to funnel through public health, but credit the journalist for wanting to break the story.
Fast Installs and Big Bang is Better – This is somewhat anecdotal, but Judy said that when they started they thought slow installs with a limited set of features was better. However, they quickly realized that Fast Installs and Big Bang are better.
Carl Dvorak took the stage briefly to talk about Epic internationally. He shared that international is growing. Then, he suggested that we should have international benchmarks. Plus, you can create your own benchmarks in Cogito automatically if you have more than 5 organizations (makes it anonymous) or you just need permission from the organizations if under 5.
Epic offers Operational Services for specific issues. Two examples shared were reducing length of stay and improving outpatient access. Seems like it’s basically Epic consulting services.
Health Grid – This was mentioned a few times generically and generally. They didn’t dive into too much detail other than one slide with a lot of logos. Here’s how they broke out the Health Grid on the slide:
- Payers with Payer Platform – 29 logos (7 new)
- Devices with Aura – 3 logos (2 new)
- Diagnostics with Aura – 14 logos (4 new)
- Specialty Societies with the Community Registry Platform (New!) – 3 logos
- Surgical Implant Manufacturers (New!) – 1 logo
Nurse Experience – A whole roadmap was shown on how Epic is working to transform the nurse experience at the bedside. The Bedside TV along with device data is at the center of this. Although, there’s AI charting mixed in there in Early 2026 into Nov 2026. Of course, Cosmo Insights for nurses is on the roadmap too.
Patient transfer advisor – They didn’t give much detail on what this is, but patients transfers is a problem so I’m curious what they have in mind. It’s scheduled for March 2026
Lots of User Events – In case you didn’t know, Epic offers a bunch of user conferences: Leadership (UGM), Experts (XGM), Third Parties (Open @ Epic), Connect Sites & Hosts (Connect Collaboration), European Experts (European Application Forums), European Leadership (EGM), Middle East (Epic Majlis), Asia-Pacific (Epic APGM).
Random Judy Request – I feel like each year Judy adds some sort of random request for something she’d like changed in healthcare. This year she showed a picture of pediatric hospitals and how colorful and playful they were (The Children’s hospitals started cheering). Then, she showed a picture of adult hospitals and how drab they are in comparison. Then she suggested, adults thrive in creative areas too. Next year she wants to share pictures of improvements. It will be interesting who answers that call.
As Judy wrapped up her portion of the keynote, she said this:
We predict the future so we can prepare for it and so we can change it.
Needless to say, Epic is doing a lot in so many different areas. It’s actually quite hard to predict the future with Epic, but hopefully this gives you some insight.
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