Since it was launched in 2017, Epic Systems’ App Market (formerly Epic App Orchard) has grown to include 411 apps from more than 500 participating organizations. According to the most recent numbers, The Epic app developer program consists of approximately 1,200 app licenses and three billion API messages across its full customer base.
What is Epic App? The Epic App Market helps hospitals, health systems, providers and healthcare technology companies offer Epic reviewed and approved applications to the Epic user base. It provides developers, especially entrepreneurs and those employed by small healthcare organizations, with APIs and data models, sandboxes, testing and demo tools and technical, training, networking and marketing services for improving interoperability with electronic medical records, medical data, electronic health records with cutting-edge health apps.
Along with these resources, the App Market offers support from Epic developers. It enables outside healthcare software developers to integrate their digital tools with those from Epic and Epic community members to explore and access a variety of applications.
Our Top Epic App Market Solutions for Care
Although many of the applications included in Epic’s App Market (formerly Epic App Orchard) supply the Epic user community of hospitals, health systems, medical institutions and other providers with access to a variety of products and services to boost their clinical and financial operations, some newer ones focus on COVID-19, telehealth and mental and behavioral health. The apps are aiding healthcare providers in using algorithms, analytics and more to better serve their patients. These types of lists often save the best for last, but we don’t want you to have to wait until the end of this blog to find out which app is #1, so we’re starting with the best!
1. CareCommunity by Providertech
Providertech enables healthcare organizations to provide better quality care, outcomes and experiences for patients and consumers when and where they need it, leveraging mobile outreach technologies, artificial intelligence and our clinical expertise. We combine the best of clinical and technical expertise to help improve patient experiences and achieve better outcomes.
Our Epic App Market CareCommunity app enables scalable and secure patient communication solutions that automate operational and clinical workflows and engage patients through HIPAA-compliant text, voice and email messages. These solutions not only promote efficiency within the clinic setting but also boost improved public health.
For example, our eTest results solution decreases the am
ount of time to get results to patients, an especially important factor when they need to quarantine immediately. Easily integrated into Epic, Providertech’s healthcare solutions help physician practices, large health systems and payers more efficiently manage patient care, promote wellness and advance value-based initiatives. Our partners experience:
- Expanded care delivery capabilities
- Streamlined vaccine management
- Improved patient access and quality outcomes
- Minimized exposure to infectious diseases
- Enhanced population health management
- Increased revenue stream generation
2. University of Minnesota (UMN)/M Health Fairview
A public land-grant university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, UMN is among the United States’ top public research universities. Recently, researchers at the school collaborated with M Health Fairview, a health system that is a partnership between UMN, University of Minnesota Physicians and Fairview Health Services. Working with Epic, the researchers developed and deployed a tool that uses an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm to assess chest X-rays for potential cases of COVID-19.
Already in use at all 12 of M Health Fairview’s hospitals, the algorithm looks for patterns associated with COVID-19, which, if recognized, allows clinicians to quickly see within the Epic system that the patient probably has the virus. It’s similar to research performed at the University of Central Florida which found that algorithms could learn to classify COVID-19 pneumonia with as much as 90 percent accuracy and distinguish cases from those caused by the flu. To assist other providers in fighting the novel coronavirus, the UMN and M Health Fairview research teams have made the algorithm free of charge in the App Market.
3. Cedar
The Cedar app is a patient financial engagement platform for assisting providers in personalizing the patient financial experience and streamlining revenue cycle operations. It was developed to engage patients in self-service financial workflows, including viewing consolidated physician and hospital invoices, paying bills using modern payment methods and setting up customized payment plans.
4. Zoom
Many employees have been working remotely since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the novel coronavirus outbreak, 31 percent of employees worked from home, a number that has increased to 88 percent. Many companies have turned to Zoom to host virtual meetings. So have healthcare providers.
The HIPAA/PIPEDA-compliant Zoom app in the Epic App Market allows patients, physicians and other healthcare professionals to communicate face-to-face using Zoom video during Epic appointment visits. Zoom for telehealth delivers consistent clinical user experiences while seamlessly integrating with providers’ technology and workflows using the Zoom epic integration.
5. VisuWell
As a cloud-based telehealth platform, VisuWell offers videoconferencing, patient triage and intake routing and integrates with clinical devices, including stethoscopes and telehealth carts. Its offering in the Epic App Market enables virtual encounters within a provider’s Epic account and his or her patient’s MyChart portal. Patients simply log into MyChart and are able to remotely complete a virtual account with the provider.
The aim of the VisuWell app is to be utilized by healthcare providers to leverage their provider networks to extend virtual care services, increase access, decrease patient leakage, promote continuity of care and improve outcomes. Hospitals and health systems can use the platform’s video streaming capabilities to deploy telehealth services across a wide variety of programs.
6. MDCalc
A medical calculator app, MDCalc is a clinical decision tool that can be especially helpful for providers during the COVID-19 pandemic. It offers more than 550 calculators across over 50 specialties, and, according to the company, is utilized by more than 65 percent of U.S. physicians weekly. The MDCalc app enables clinical scores to be auto-filled while inputs are reviewed, edited and verified by the clinician and categorizes key tools providers can use for different purposes.
7. NeuroFlow
Developed for behavioral health providers, this HIPAA-compliant, cloud-based platform consists of a combination of provider workflow augmentation solutions, clinical care dashboards and a patient-facing application. It’s designed to create a clinical feedback loop centered around behavioral health and can be used to streamline clinical workflows and scale existing initiatives for measuring and treating patients’ mental health symptoms. 
The NeuroFlow app also gives patients 24/7 access to personalized, evidence-based behavioral health assessments, videos, resources, breathing guides and journal prompts. This patient-generated data is then fed into NeuroFlow’s provider-facing web platform, allowing clinicians to risk-stratify patients and enhance care coordination efforts.
8. SilverCloud
This company’s virtual care platform for mental health is the first such solution listed in the Epic App Market. Providers can connect to the platform through Epic EHR to deliver on-demand digital therapeutic care to patients. The goal of the SilverCloud app is to improve outcomes and increase access, scale support and reduce costs.
According to the company, once a provider connects Epic to the mental health platform, he or she has the ability to provide in-application patient dashboards, view clinical measure scores and generate referral emails to invite patients to join SilverCloud. The solution automatically obtains the patient name and email using FHIR APIs. UnityPoint Health in Iowa was the first health system to integrate SilverCloud into its EHR.
Whether you want to use predictive analytics to manage appointment adherence, quickly identify gaps in care or measure patient and member satisfaction, Providertech has the solutions to help you achieve your business goals. Schedule a demo with us to learn more!
9. CoverMyMeds Prescription Price and Status
There are more than 20,000 prescription drug products approved for marketing in the U.S. Each year, more than 4 billion prescriptions are dispensed. Designed to enable patients to view the best price and pharmacy for their prescriptions from within their MyChart patient portal, the CoverMyMeds real-time price comparison tool also allows them to view prior authorization status on medications they’ve been prescribed.
10. AJCC 8th and Future Editions Cancer Staging Forms
Publications from the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) are widely recognized as the authoritative guides for cancer staging information. This AJCC app provides clinicians with access to the latest and most comprehensive staging guidelines when diagnosing and planning treatment for a patient’s cancer.