#THEY ARE BILLIONS SAVE FILE SOFTWARE#

Over three years of chemotherapy-and the seizures, spinal compression fractures, sepsis infections, and debilitating nerve pain that came with it-I amassed a thick file of prescriptions filled, body parts scanned, and blood sampled. In April 1997, two months shy of my 11th birthday, I was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. This is a personal issue for me-IвЂ™m one of those Americans with a dizzyingly complex medical history. Unfortunately, in some ways, our medical records arenвЂ™t in any better shape today than they were before. вЂњThis will cut waste, eliminate red tape, and reduce the need to repeat expensive medical tests.вЂќ вЂњWithin five years, all of AmericaвЂ™s medical records are computerized,вЂќ he announced in January 2009, when visiting VirginiaвЂ™s George Mason University to unveil his stimulus plan. But it also means weвЂ™re all missing out on the kind of system-wide savings that President Barack Obama predicted nearly seven years ago, when the federal government poured billions of dollars into digitizing the countryвЂ™s medical records. This is especially important for patients with lengthy and complicated health histories. That hurts patients who canвЂ™t be assured that their records-drug allergies, test results, X-rays-will be available to the doctors who need to see them. Kaiser Permanente, CVSвЂ™s Minute Clinics, Johns Hopkins, and Mount Sinai all use Epic.Д«ut instead of ushering in a new age of secure and easily accessible medical files, Epic has helped create a fragmented system that leaves doctors unable to trade information across practices or hospitals.

Epic pulled in $1.8 billion in 2014 and is expanding at a rate of about 1,000 new employees a year.

#THEY ARE BILLIONS SAVE FILE SOFTWARE#

Thanks to the White HouseвЂ™s stimulus-era initiative to bring the health care industry into the digital age, her company has grown into the countryвЂ™s leading vendor of software in the $9.3 billion electronic health records (EHR) sector. Judith Faulkner, EpicвЂ™s 72-year-old founder and one of just 18 women on ForbesвЂ list of self-made billionaires, often dresses in costume (Lucille Ball, a Hogwarts wizard) at the companyвЂ™s annual meeting, which draws thousands of hospital executives and IT officers to the companyвЂ™s 11,400-seat Deep Space Auditorium.

A group of Harry Potter-inspired office buildings dubbed the вЂњWizards AcademyвЂќ is currently under construction. One corridor is modeled to resemble a New York City subway car, complete with a statue of a homeless guy asleep on a bench. ThereвЂ™s a Dungeons & Dragons-themed building with a moat and a replica drawbridge. EpicвЂ™s HQ features a conference room tucked in a tree house. Nestled in the gently rolling hills of Verona, Wisconsin, a small Madison suburb, is the 1,000-acre вЂњIntergalactic HeadquartersвЂќ of Epic Systems, the multibillion-dollar company that claims its software manages medical records for 179 million Americans-or 56 percent of the country.

They are billions save file