Epic Systems dominates the U.S. hospital EHR market from its campus in Verona, Wisconsin. Founded by Judy Faulkner in 1979, the company stayed private and self-funded its entire growth. Today, Epic’s software handles medical records for more than half of all patients in the United States, and its customer list reads like a who’s who of academic medical centers — Mayo Clinic, Kaiser Permanente, Johns Hopkins, and Cleveland Clinic all run on Epic.
The platform covers inpatient and outpatient records, scheduling, billing, patient portals (MyChart), and clinical decision support. MyChart alone has over 190 million activated accounts, letting patients view test results, message doctors, and schedule appointments from a single app. Epic’s Care Everywhere network enables record sharing across different health systems without requiring them to be on the same platform.
What makes Epic unusual in tech is its business model. The company doesn’t do acquisitions, doesn’t take venture capital, and doesn’t license its software to third-party resellers. Every implementation is handled directly. Revenue surpassed $4 billion in recent years, and Faulkner still owns the majority of the company. Epic has been expanding internationally, with deployments in Denmark, the Netherlands, Finland, and across the Middle East.
