Epic In 2013 = AOL In 1999?

This is a good time to be a big EHR company. Health systems are willing to pay more than $100 million to have a new electronic health record system installed. The New York Times even fawned over the innovative prowess of Epic, which is arguably the most powerful EHR company on the planet.

But are EHR systems designed for healthcare’s future state? Let’s put aside the absurd $100+ million price tag and consider what EHR systems are designed to do. They enable clinical data exchange within a hospital. Exchanging data beyond the hospital walls -- even with patients themselves -- is an afterthought of these systems. EHR systems are really good at providing a view of patient information from the perspective of a single institution -- a walled garden of clinical information.

Here’s the problem. Health reform is driving patient-centered care coordination. Thriving in the future means getting really good at the very things that EHR systems don’t do well.