Epic

Throughout our 25-year history, we have focused on providing applications and services for large, multi-specialty organizations, giving us a deep understanding of both the challenges faced by these groups and the strategies that lead to long-term success. Judith Faulkner and others establish Human Services Computing, Inc., which becomes Epic. KLAS Enterprises names Epic the "best overall vendor of healthcare information technology" for the seventh straight year. Epic owes its start to Judith Faulkner, a computer programmer who came to Madison, Wisconsin in the 1970s to pursue graduate studies in computer science after earning a mathematics degree in her native Pennsylvania. Following graduate school, Faulkner worked as a consultant and taught computer science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison during the 1970s and early 1980s. In the August 1998 issue of Health Data Management, Dan Balaban wrote of Faulkner: "During this time, she led the design of clinical records systems for various departments serving the university's hospital and for the Milwaukee County mental health department. To commercialize the systems, Faulkner and about a dozen other programmers and information managers at the university and other institutions pooled about $70,000 in 1979 to start Epic." In Epic Systems Corporation: A Brief History, the company described its Chronicles data repository, explaining: "Based on the single, longitudinal patient record and designed to handle enterprise-wide data from inpatient, ambulatory, and payer environments, this database became the foundation of Epic's integrated application suite. Our earliest development efforts focused on fine-tuning this infrastructure, ensuring that all of our applications would provide organizations with the scalability, rapid response times, and seamless data-level integration required to manage large volumes of enterprise information in a single system. Building from the central data repository, we developed an integrated suite of clinical, patient access, revenue cycle, and e-health products to cover every point in the care process." During its first decade, Epic found a considerable market for its practice management software. Cadence Enterprise Scheduling was first released in 1983. The application helped clients to improve the efficiency of resource utilization and manage patient access. Cadence eventually became one of the industry's leading scheduling applications. In the mid-1980s, Human Services Computing changed its name to Epic. It was at this time that the company's focus shifted toward software applications used to track inventory and medical labor costs. In 1987, Epic released another new application called Resolute Professional Billing, which also evolved into an industry-leading program. According to Epic, Resolute helped users to connect patient access and scheduling functions on the front end with billing functions on the back end. Epic ended the decade by securing a deal with Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Harvard Community Health Plan in 1989. Epic beat a large sea of competitors to provide the Harvard HMO, which operated 12 medical centers, with its Cadence system. By this time, the company had other large clients, including the Ontario Ministry of Health in Canada and a 490-bed hospital constructed by the Sultan of Brunei. In fact, Epic's bookkeeping software was used by approximately 100 hospitals in Asia, Canada, and the United States. In 1990, Epic was conducting business from a site at 5609 Medical Circle in Madison. However, it soon relocated to a former elementary school at 5301 Tokay Boulevard. At this time, the company employed approximately 30 workers. While Epic specialized in general database, public health, and scheduling applications, it offered clients more than 50 different products, ranging in price from about $10,000 to several million dollars. Epic reached a milestone in 1992 when it introduced a Windows-based electronic medical record (E