Epic Systems (MyChart)

What if we told you that the most important company in US
healthcare was run from a farm in rural Wisconsin? And that farm
contained the world’s largest subterranean auditorium, as well as
Disneyland—style replicas of Hogwarts and the Emerald City? What
if we told you that the person who started, runs and owns this
establishment has legally ensured that it will never be sold,
never go public and never acquire another company? And that this
person, Judy Faulkner, is also likely the wealthiest and most
successful self-made woman in history?


Welcome to the story of Epic Systems, the software company that
underpins the majority of the American healthcare system today.
Epic isn’t “just” an electronic medical record (the category it’s
usually lumped into), or an online patient portal (which is how
most of the US population interacts with it via its MyChart
application). It’s more akin to a central nervous system for
hospitals and health clinics. Almost everything in a hospital —
from patient interactions to billing, staffing, scheduling,
prescriptions and even research — happens on Epic’s platform, and
over 90% of American medical schools’ graduating doctors, nurses
and health administrative staff are trained on it during their
educations. Tune in as we dive into the almost-unbelievable story
of how this epic company came to be!


Sponsors:


WorkOS: https://bit.ly/workos25

Sierra: https://bit.ly/acquiredsierra

Sentry: https://bit.ly/acquiredsentry

Anthropic: https://bit.ly/acquiredclaude25



Links:


Save the date, July 15 in NYC!

Epic’s Verona campus

Worldly Partners’ Multi-Decade Epic Systems Study

Episode sources



Carve Outs:


Ken Block in San Francisco

Nintendo Switch 2

Knives Out

Brat by Charli xcx

Music To Refine To: A Remix Companion to Severance by ODESZA






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