Businessmodel of Epic Systems

Customer Segments

Epic Systems has a niche-market business model. The company targets its offerings at organizations belonging to the healthcare industry. Its main customer groups are:

• Hospitals and Clinics - For the information to be transferable among doctors and specialists, and be readily available to patients and doctors alike, presence of an EMR system is necessary.
• Ambulatory Surgical Centers - Such organizations require healthcare management software for surgical scheduling, inventory management, clinical workflow, medical coding, insurance and patient billing, and accounts receivable collections for multi-facility corporate enterprises, joint ventures with hospitals, and freestanding ambulatory surgery centers.
• Healthcare Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) - HMOs require EMR systems to improve the quality of medical care they provide and securely transmit patient data among physicians to help coordinate the care of millions of patients with multiple chronic conditions. ### Value Propositions

The chief value proposition Epic Systems offers is its excellent reputation which is also responsible for its large customer base.

Epic Systems was voted top overall software suite in the 2015/2016 Best in KLAS awards. Plus, according to ONCHIT, Epic has the best-selling electronic health records system in both hospital and ambulatory market.

Furthermore, some of the largest and most prestigious American hospitals and health systems use Epic’s EHR system, including Kaiser Permanente, Oakland, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Cleveland Clinic, Texas Health Resources, UCLA Health LA, Massachusetts General Hospital, Mount Sinai Health System and Duke University Health System. Total customers of Epic amount to 297, and 70% of HIMSS Analytics Stage 7 hospitals use the EpicCare inpatient EHR system.

Channels

Epic Systems reaches out to its customers through its websites and its offices; though, it has international offices. It does not have very active social media platforms.

Neither does it spend large amounts of money on marketing. Customers mainly reach out to Epic Systems themselves.

Customer Relationships

The customer relationship of Epic Systems is of a dedicated personal-assistance nature.

An employee from Epic interacts with the customer to provide assistance during or after sales. Most intimate assistance and hands-on help is readily available to the customer.

Key Resources

The key resources of Epic Systems are its EMR/EHR products and solutions, and its human resources which create and develop these products for Epic in the first place.

Key Activities

The key activities of Epic Systems are developing EMR solutions for hospitals and ambulatory clinics.

Epic’s applications support functions related to patient care, including scheduling and registration; clinical systems for doctors, nurses, emergency personnel, and other care providers; systems for lab technologists, pharmacists, and radiologists; and billing systems for insurers.

Key Partnerships

Epic is among the very few major vendors who are not members of the CommonWell Health Alliance, a coalition formed to promote interoperability of health data between providers.

However, it did partner with Apple in 2014 on a mobile platform - called Health - that combines data from other health-tracking apps and displays information in a dashboard format. Other than that, it does not have significant partnerships.

Cost Structure

The major costs driver of Epic is the money spent on development of EMR solutions. Unlike other healthcare software application providers, Epic is known for spending little money on sales and marketing efforts.

According to Forbes, the company has about one-quarter the sales staff of competitor Cerner, and customers generally reach out to Epic rather than the other way around. So, marketing has a very little contribution in driving costs.

Revenue Streams

Epic generates its revenue through a combination of upfront fees for the software and ongoing upgrade, maintenance, and service fees. All of these are related to the development of EMR products and solutions.