ChatGPT for Healthcare unveils Epic integration as part of data consolidation strategy

OpenAI’s ChatGPT for Healthcare division announced this week that it will be deploying a new integration that gives its large language model access to medical records stored by Epic Systems, the largest electronic health record vendor in the country.

Epic’s EHR holds data on nearly all Americans—325 million patients. The connection will allow providers to utilize the AI to examine those records as they care for individual patients, OpenAI said in a statement. But beyond that, it will allow ChatGPT and the EHR to work together as part of a single workflow, effectively adding the AI chatbot to the record system during clinical encounters.

Much like other AI that is pulling from medical records, the integration will allow a provider or clinician to access details that are important to a patient encounter: current prescriptions, known medical history, any record of allergies, lab results, and other documentation for past patient care encounters.

According to OpenAI, ChatGPT can automatically summarize much of that information, allowing providers to more easily glean insights. Many of the features of the integration will allow a provider to do this, while adding to the existing medical record and developing a care plan, without closing a patient’s chart.