Epic hires lobbying firm to improve interoperability image

Epic Systems has hired a lobbying firm to work on its interoperability image which has been under fire by critics who say the company's system doesn't work well with others.

Epic hired Card & Associates last month. In its federal lobbying disclosure, the EMR firm says that it’s begun lobbying to “educate members of Congress on the interoperability of Epic’s healthcare information technology.”

"There's been a lot of misinformation out there," A. Bradford Card, the firm's principal, told Politico. "I've had a number of productive meetings with Congress to educate members and staff so they know who Epic is and the great story they have to tell. They are the most interoperable EHR company."

Congressman Phil Gingrey (R-Md.) specifically mentioned called out Epic's apparent lack of interoperability during a July hearing on Capitol Hill. "And Congress has spent, as we all know, something like $24 billion over the past six years buying products to facilitate interoperability only to have the main vendor under the program, Epic, sell closed platforms," Gingrey said during the Energy & Commerce Committee hearing. "Do you believe that the federal government and the taxpayers are getting their money's worth subsidizing products that are supposed to be interoperable but they are not?"

In June, Edmund Billings, MD, chief medical officer at Medsphere Systems, the developer of the OpenVista EHR, also criticized Epic. "While Epic preaches interoperability, it practices non-interoperability and vendor lock," he wrote.