Epic expanding its lead on EHR competitors

Two large nonprofit health systems made headlines earlier this month announcing that they plan to transition, enterprise-wide, from Oracle Cerner to Epic for their electronic health record (EHR) system. Using data from KLAS Research, the graphic below shows how Epic has emerged in recent years as the leader in the hospital EHR market. From 2016 to 2022, Epic increased its acute care hospital market share from 26 percent to 36 percent, while its main rival, Oracle Cerner, held flat at 25 percent. Moreover, Epic is gaining popularity among larger health systems, while Oracle Cerner lost almost 5K beds in 2022, despite gaining 22 hospitals, as it trades large systems for smaller hospitals. Epic’s ability to consolidate multiple archives into a single, more functional platform has made it popular with physicians, whose feedback was cited by Intermountain as a key reason behind the system’s decision to switch. With three quarters of Americans having an Epic record, the company is leveraging its pole position in aggregating healthcare data as healthcare approaches the cusp of a generative AI boom, recentlyannouncing an expanded partnershipwith Microsoft focused on integrating AI tools into its EHR system.