Content area
Full text
Judy Faulkner is founder and CEO of Epic Systems Corp., which she launched in 1979 with a $70,000 bank loan secured against her house and the sweat equity of a few programming customers. Privately held Epic, based in Verona, Wis., is now one of the leading electronic health-record vendors in the country, with 2014 revenue of $1.77 billion and clients that include Kaiser Permanente, Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins and CVS Health. It dominates the key market niche of complete EHRs sold to hospitals and physician practices. Last August, facing congressional criticism that Epic's products weren't interoperable with other EHR systems, Epic hired a prominent Washington lobbying firm to discuss the issue with lawmakers. Faulkner counters that Epic's EHRs are interoperable and that the number of patient records its customers share with others is increasing. She just announced plans to donate most of her shares of Epic stock to a charitable foundation that will keep Epic privately owned. Modern Healthcare reporter Joseph Conn recently spoke with her about the origins of her company, the reason for its continued reliance on the MUMPS programming language and why she has kept her company private. This is an edited transcript.
Modern Healthcare: Please describe your early days at Epic Systems Corp.
Judy Faulkner: In 1979, we were located in the basement of an apartment building that was rented out for small businesses as an incubator. The company initially was called Human Services Computing. I was working part time for the University of Wisconsin and part time for the company. It probably added up to 90 hours a week.
MH: As a University of Wisconsin graduate student in computer science, you studied with Dr. Warner Slack, who is the co-founder of the...