1979 Paper by Epic Systems CEO Judith Faulkner

Tom Munnecke | Tom Munnecke's Eclectica | August 20, 2010

I’m researching a op-ed piece on federal health care software, and am browsing through my old proceedings from the early days of the MUMPS Users Group meetings.  These meetings were quite an entrepreneurial incubator: Judy Faulkner was starting Epic Systems,  Paul Egerman, founded Interpretive Data Systems, which then became  IDX and sold to GE HealthCare systems for $1.2 billion, Terry Ragon started Intersystems, and I had just started working for the VA to work on what was to become VistA, and spread to the Department of Defense as CHCS and the Indian Health Service as RPMS.

Here is scan of Judy Faulkner’s 1979 paper called PISAR: A Time-Oriented Data Management System.  Judy’s Epic Systems went on to become a powerhouse in the Electronic Medical Record space.  It is remarkably similar to the architecture I was developing for the VA VistA’s system with George Timson and others called the File Manager.

It’s interesting to look at these systems 30 years later.  Judy’s company, Epic, has become a giant in the electronic medical record world.  VistA has gone on to power the transformation of the VA documented in Phil Longman’s Best Care Anywhere.

Rumors abound that EPIC is the lead contender for replacing AHLTA.  An alternative is the Open Vista Initiative.