James Hereford, president CEO of Minneapolis-based Fairview Health Services had some harsh words for electronic health records giant Epic, calling for his fellow healthcare executives to band together to counter Epic’s clout in the industry.

At a forum hosted by the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal, Hereford called Epic “one of the biggest impediments to innovation in health care” because of how the Wisconsin-based company “thinks about their (intellectual property) and the IP of others that develop on that platform.”

“There are literally billions of dollars in the Silicon Valley chasing innovation in health care. Yet Epic has architected an organization that has its belief that all good ideas are from Madison, Wisconsin. And on the off chance that one of us think of a good idea, it’s still owned by Madison, Wisconsin,” he said.

Pressure from executives, he said, may force Epic to change its approach.

“There is an opportunity for us to go to Epic and say, 'Look, you have to open up this platform,’” he said. “It’s for our benefit in terms of having an innovative platform where all these bright, amazing entrepreneurs can actually have access to what is essentially 80 percent of the U.S. population that is cared for within an Epic environment. I would love for us to get together to see how we march on Madison.”

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