Epic responds to Mother Jones criticism

Epic responds to Mother Jones criticism

In October, Mother Jones published an article attacking Epic, saying the EHR vendor has not delivered on the industrywide goal of connecting patient health records and optimizing digitization in healthcare. Now, Epic has written a response to Mother Jones in which the vendor refutes the claims made in the original article, saying the story was written using misinformation.

Peter DeVault, vice president of interoperability at Epic, penned the letter. He wrote, “The story took on a difficult and important topic related to EHR systems and their ability to interoperate. Unfortunately, it was based on discredited and unsubstantiated claims against Epic.”

The Mother Jones article, called “Epic Fail,” claims Epic stands in the way of seamless data sharing and doesn’t allow patients easy access to their data. The author of the article, Patrick Caldwell, wrote, “Epic has helped create a fragmented system that leaves doctors unable to trade information across practices or hospitals. That hurts patients who can’t be assured that their records…will be available to the doctors who need to see them.”

In his letter to the editor, Mr. DeVault outlined Epic’s data sharing capabilities, including how customers can access data at their discretion. “Epic customers can access their EHR almost anywhere, at any time, and our customers connect to and share patient records with thousands of organizations using other vendors’ products, including those used by the Department of Defense and the Veterans Health Administration. According to the eHealth Exchange, Epic shares more records with these government agencies than any other vendor.”

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