Top 5 News Of The Week

Week of march 5, 2025

Epic's Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) System

Epic announced it is developing an ERP system for healthcare, positioning it in direct competition with companies like Oracle, Workday, and Infor.

Many CIOs will wait and go all in with Epic for everything. As many healthcare organizations grapple with an outdated ERP system and explore the next-generation cloud ERP product, this announcement may delay the purchase of Workday or Oracle. Developing an ERP is not the same as creating a module, so this will be interesting. On the flip side, many smaller healthcare organizations do not have an enterprise ERP and utilize the EMR features; this is most likely the client target for Epic.

Oracle Health Outage

Oracle Health had a regional outage. The VA says that all six of its medical centers and 26 community clinics on Oracle Health were affected. Online chatter suggests that the problem was related to installing a security certificate. Oracle Health will need to minimize bad press as many healthcare organizations are looking for any excuse for system migration to Epic, even though it does make sense financially.

Microsoft Dragon Copilot

It was one of the busiest booths at HIMSS, and everyone was looking to get the demo of this announcement. We finally saw some integration movement after the Nuance acquisition. Yes, many organizations have both Dragon dictation and DAX, but will Dragon Copilot integrate seamlessly with electronic health records (EHRs) and adapt across diverse care settings without adding complexity?

Microsoft told me that pricing would be "competitive" and upgrades would be straightforward for existing customers. DAX is not cheap, and Microsoft told me the price is "competitive." The new price for the customer is DAX+Dragon, with a minimal discount, which is not a long-term solution for the industry. Is this why some organizations are using another ambient solution?

Palm ID Is back

Patients at NYU Langone Health facilities can confirm their identity at check-in using Amazon One. This contactless service uses a simple palm scan to securely and quickly authenticate identity. This feels like the Imprivata palm vein product released 10 years ago. I was a customer, but the adoption rate was challenging, so maybe now is a better time.

Fake Ransomware Attack Letters

The American Hospital Association (AHA) warned hospitals and health systems nationwide about a new extortion scheme involving fake data breach letters. These fraudulent letters assert that hackers have compromised sensitive patient data and demand a ransom to prevent its release. Luckily, I got a call about this; it was a false alarm.