Judy Faulkner, Epic founder and CEO, has shared insights into Epic’s almost 50-year journey in the electronic health records space, in a YouTube interview with journalist and author Katie Couric.
Beginning by talking about her background and her discovery of coding in the early days of the computer, Faulkner shares the story of being asked to develop a system capable of tracking patient clinical information over time as part of an assignment, and how being one of the only women in that space at the time ended up being an advantage.
Faulkner highlights issues at the time with paper records, including “sloppy” records rooms, challenges with reading handwritten notes, and difficulties locating patient charts. She discusses the journey through developing Epic’s products and overcoming some of the challenges along the way.
Couric also questions Faulkner on recent issues around monopoly accusations and antitrust suits, data standards and sharing, and identifying potential capabilities to suit the needs of clinicians on the frontline.
Watch the full video below.
Wider trend: EPR
Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust has awarded a ten-year EPR contract with a value of £52 million to Epic, taking the trust up to 2036. The trust’s board in its January meeting covered the board assurance framework, noting issues with IT infrastructure, digital maturity, and technical debt. “Lewisham and Greenwich NHS has had a phased roll out over several years of its existing EPR system which has left the trust with a partially deployed EPR for acute services and a separate community EPR with only 80 percent of our clinical systems integrated and linked to the Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Patient Master Index,” it stated.
East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust has shared the first successful go-live for its EmPoweR EPR programme, as the trust outlines its plans for strengthening digital foundations under its five-year integrated delivery plan. Successful completion of the trust’s first EmPoweR EPR go-live has included the migration of the Nervecentre clinical system used to track patient flow, to a cloud-based SaaS platform to promote faster updates to EPR, it shares, with learnings from this phase to inform the next major go-live in September 2026. A paper picnic has offered insight into clinical documentation still in use across services, forming an “important foundation” for EPR preparation, it continues, highlighting current workflows and opportunities to streamline or transition to digital solutions.
Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust has signed a contract with the Access Group to introduce its electronic patient record system. Nick Black, CIO and senior information risk owner at Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS has taken to LinkedIn to announce the trust’s successful procurement of the EPR. Black shares that following a “robust” procurement process, TEWV has signed a contract with The Access Group for their Rio Evo EPR, with work already starting ahead of a planned go-live in April 2027.
