Does Epic resist or support interoperability? Hell if I know.

I just realized that my somewhat infamous question at the ONC annual meeting is recorded on video!

The background on my question, which I made me very popular at the meeting afterwards, was that I had heard that Epic hired a lobbyist to convince congress that it is an interoperable company.

That lobbyist and others at Epic have been heard saying stuff like “Interoperability is Epics strength”… and “Epic is the most open system I know” etc etc.. This makes me think “what planet I am on?”

I have actually heard of hospitals being told “no at any price” by Epic, and I have never heard that regarding another vendor… although there are lots of rumors like that about Epic I would prefer to be fair. How would I know if Judy et al, had really turned a corner on interoperability. Epic has been a faithful participant in the Direct Project, which is the only direct (see what I did there?) experience I have had with them.

But I want data… and here is what happened when I asked for it at the annual ONC meeting. Click through to see the video.. it auto plays so I did not want it on the my main site.

 

You can find my question at 55:22

The previous ONC’s joked that Karen needed at human shield from my question, which I thought was pretty funny…

-FT