TLDR: Epic’s recent Users Group Meeting showcased a significant shift towards ‘healthcare intelligence,’ integrating advanced AI capabilities directly into its EHR system. CIOs and healthcare executives expressed strong enthusiasm for features like the ‘large medical model’ trained on 16 billion patient encounters, AI-powered chatbots for patient queries, and tools for automating administrative tasks. These advancements are expected to dramatically improve diagnostic accuracy, reduce clinician burden, and enhance patient engagement, marking a pivotal moment for enterprise-level AI adoption in healthcare.
Epic Systems recently unveiled a suite of groundbreaking AI features at its annual Users Group Meeting (UGM) in Verona, Wisconsin, signaling a major leap towards ‘healthcare intelligence’ within its Electronic Health Record (EHR) system. IT leaders and healthcare executives attending the event expressed considerable excitement and anticipation for the widespread rollout of these integrated AI capabilities.
Crystal Broj, Chief Digital Transformation Officer at MUSC Health, emphasized the industry’s readiness for enterprise-level AI, stating, “What excites me most is that this isn’t just hype — Epic’s move shows the industry is ready to move from small pilots to true enterprise-level AI. We’re at a real inflection point.” She also highlighted the challenge of aligning the growing vendor landscape with Epic’s roadmap to ensure economic sense and workforce readiness.
Sha Edathumparampil, Chief Digital and Information Officer at Baptist Health South Florida, praised Epic’s approach to integrating AI directly into the platform, ensuring clinicians can access tools at the point of care without juggling multiple applications. “Epic is going about it the right way, thinking about adoption, or that last mile, up front,” he noted, adding that this integration makes it “really easy for people to use.”
A standout feature is Epic’s “large medical model,” which is being trained on an unprecedented 16 billion patient encounters from the company’s Cosmos research platform. Mr. Edathumparampil expressed immense excitement, stating, “You can only imagine the kind of accuracy you would get with that specific information. This is not a model trained on Reddit data. This is from actual physicians and nurses … vitals and test results.” Michael Pfeffer, MD, Senior Vice President and Chief Information and Digital Officer at Stanford Health Care, echoed this sentiment, calling the model’s potential “incredible” for its predictive capabilities and ability to replace traditional models. Michael Han, MD, VP and Chief Medical Information Officer at MultiCare Health System, described the introduction of Cosmos AI and the large medical model as “the most impactful thing I heard,” considering it transformational if integrated into physician workflows.
Epic also showcased a forthcoming MyChart feature allowing patients to chat with AI about test results. Dr. Christopher Longhurst, Chief Clinical and Innovation Officer of UC San Diego Health, who participated in a clinical trial of the functionality, found it “easy to use and really helpful.” Preliminary research with over 120 respondents indicated that three out of four were “very or extremely likely” to reuse the chatbot. Dr. Longhurst observed that “People with less education scored the AI helper significantly higher, suggesting this may help bridge the digital divide.”
Anna Schoenbaum, DNP, RN, VP and Chief Digital Applications Officer at Penn Medicine, highlighted the promise of AI tools that summarize or synthesize information for clinicians, reducing their cognitive burden before patient visits or shift handoffs. Pam Austin, SVP and CIO of Johnson City, Tenn.-based Ballad Health, expressed enthusiasm for AI-powered chart abstraction, MyChart features for tracking wound healing, and AI revenue cycle management tools for claims follow-up and automated coding validation.
Despite the enthusiasm, executives acknowledged challenges. Sha Edathumparampil humorously remarked, “You now need AI to manage the scheduling and planning of AI deployments,” but quickly added, “It’s a good problem to have.” He also raised questions about the necessary data center infrastructure to support hundreds of thousands of providers using these tools simultaneously. Dr. Han pointed out that while the technology is the “easy part,” gaining clinician trust and adoption remains a significant hurdle. The partnership with Microsoft on a new AI scribe, set to launch in early 2026, also sparked discussion regarding its integration with existing tools like Microsoft’s Dragon (DAX) copilot.
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Dan Exley, Interim Chief Information and Innovation Officer at Sharp HealthCare, expressed confidence in Epic’s ability to meet its ambitious goals, noting their consistent track record. He believes Epic is “retooling the platform for another era,” moving towards an “agentic-AI-enabled” EHR that could shift healthcare away from the traditional PC/keyboard/mouse paradigm through multimodal AI, including voice. Muhammad Siddiqui, CIO of Reid Health, summarized the shift: “It feels like a real shift — from just documenting care to using the platform as a smart, real-time tool that brings together data, AI and workflows.” He concluded that features like Synopsis and AI agents are “already part of live workflows, which makes a real difference for reducing clinician burden and showing actual impact.”
