Epic Systems, a major medical records vendor, is warning customers it will stop working with Google Cloud
Summary
The calls have come in the past few weeks, said three people with knowledge of the matter, and were directed to Epics hospital customers that use Googles cloud-based technology either for medical research, data storage or for their basic IT operations, including file-sharing. It sells its products, which include a digital equivalent of the traditional doctors paper medical chart as well as billing tools, into the largest hospital systems in the U.S. Epic installations are major undertakings, and can end up costing billions of dollars overall. Google has subsequently said that it is "super proud" of this work with Ascension, and that it hopes to leverage the data for good to develop technologies to detect disease earlier, as well as a tool for doctors and nurses to more easily search their medical record systems, including Epic. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Cerner, Epics chief rival, decided against pursuing a data-storage relationship with Google despite being offered tens of millions of dollars in incentives. "Weve historically seen hospital systems make these decisions independently of their medical record provider," said Aneesh Chopra, the president of health-technology company CareJourney and the former chief technology officer of the United States.