Inside Epic Systems’ mythical campus, a world away from Wall Street

Dorothy Gale was proper — the Land of Oz isn’t in Kansas. Fairly, it is nestled inside the rolling inexperienced fields of Verona, Wisconsin, a city of almost 16,400 folks situated about 10 miles southwest of the capital metropolis of Madison.

Verona is house to the whimsical, sprawling 1,670-acre headquarters for Epic Techniques, one of many largest privately held U.S. tech firms. Epic’s software program is seemingly ubiquitous throughout hospitals and clinics, storing the medical information of greater than 280 million folks within the U.S.

Whereas the corporate’s workforce is tasked with the hefty accountability of constructing instruments to help medical doctors and nurses as they supply care to sufferers, Epic staff spend their days milling out and in of places of work that look as in the event that they had been plucked straight from the pages of a sci-fi novel or kids’s ebook.

A yellow brick street impressed by “The Wizard of Oz” winds by means of the hallways of a gleaming, emerald inexperienced constructing. Large chocolate chips mark the entryway to the chocolate manufacturing facility, and a mischievous cat grins by means of the window of a constructing guarded by life-sized taking part in playing cards.  

Final week, 1000’s of health-care executives descended on Epic’s sprawling campus for the corporate’s annual Users Group Meeting, partly to listen to about new merchandise and upcoming initiatives. This 12 months’s theme was “storytime,” and Judy Faulkner, the corporate’s 81-year-old CEO, took the stage dressed as a swan, full with a plume of feathers in her hair.

Faulkner, a reserved mathematician who based Epic in a basement in 1979, informed the gang that the encircling buildings and their maintenance account for 8% of the corporate’s whole bills. However she made the plain level, that it is so much cheaper for Epic to purchase land and construct in Verona than it might be in a tech hub like San Francisco, Seattle or New York. And on this small midwestern city, the corporate is way from huge metropolis distractions.

“Most of us in software program improvement are lively sci-fi readers,” Faulkner stated throughout her keynote. 

For public market buyers, Epic has at all times been considerably of a fantasy.

The corporate, with its 14,000-person workforce, would not observe a preordained funds, has made zero acquisitions and by no means accepted any funding from enterprise capitalists. It abides by its personal set of Ten Commandments, in accordance with its web site, the primary of which is, “don’t go public.”

Epic generated income final 12 months of $4.9 billion. Cerner, Epic’s high rival within the digital medical information market, went public in 1986 and was acquired by Oracle in 2022 for over $28 billion. In line with Oracle’s financials, Cerner contributed $5.9 billion in income in fiscal 2023.

The S&P 500’s sub-index of software program and providers firms trades for 9 instances income. On the common, that will give Epic a valuation of roughly $45 billion.

Faulkner would not look after a Cerner-like final result. Epic’s second commandment, in any case, is “don’t be acquired.”

“Why be owned by folks whose curiosity is primarily return of fairness?” Faulkner stated onstage final week.

Touring Epic’s campus, it is clear that the corporate exists a universe away from Wall Avenue.

Every of Epic’s 28 workplace constructing is themed. They’re clustered into mini-campuses, with names like Prairie Campus, Farm Campus, Central Park Campus, Wizards Academy Campus and Storybook Campus. The buildings have gotten extra ornate over time, which has necessitated some haggling with architects, in accordance with Epic’s web site.

Convention room chairs match their buildings’ intricate themes. And whereas the campus’ dinosaurs, fits of armor and its functioning carousel are enjoyable to watch, additionally they serve a goal. Faulkner says her plan was to construct a pleasant setting that would appeal to and encourage expertise and to make sure that her staff have the quiet house they have to be productive, in accordance with a collection of testimonials on Epic’s web site.  

“We compete with huge tech,” Faulkner stated in a testimonial. “These attributes assist us rent the most effective workers potential. That helps us be extra productive.”

Faulkner says particular person places of work needs to be accessible to each employee who desires one. With the overwhelming majority of the corporate’s workforce displaying up each day to headquarters, some folks double up, since hiring typically outpaces development.

Those that wish to escape the workplace altogether, can hop on one of many firm’s 600 cow-print bikes to take conferences from a treehouse, slide down a rabbit gap or seize lunch in a prepare automotive. 

A universe underground

Epic’s deal with offers the primary clue of its netherworld existence. The corporate is situated at 1979 Milky Manner, a nod to the date of its inception and Faulkner’s affinity for a celestial theme.

Guests are greeted by an indication that reads “Epic Intergalactic Headquarters” as they journey down a street that winds between buildings and huge fields of inexperienced. Round 750 acres of Epic’s campus are lively farmland sprinkled with 42 sheep, 14 cows and a donkey.   

Nearly all of the corporate’s parking constructions are underground, which helps the campus preserve a formidable really feel from above. It additionally means staff do not have to fret about scraping snow or ice off of their automobiles through the bitter midwestern winter. 

Even when not parking, staff are not any strangers to the underground. The campus’ buildings are related through a community of tunnels and enclosed skyways, so folks do not must step exterior to journey between them. 

Staff are additionally required to attend a month-to-month workers assembly in an underground auditorium known as Deep Area. The conferences final for round two hours, and staff current tasks and talk about trade developments.

They at all times embrace a grammar lesson, too, Faulkner informed the Customers Group Assembly within the auditorium, which opened in 2013 and may seat round 11,400 folks. The room is a feat of engineering, as there are not any pillars holding it up.

To get to Deep Area, guests should descend by means of ranges of the Earth. The totally different ranges of the constructing are named Sky, Grass, Dust, Rock, Magma and Core. The foyer exterior the auditorium is impressed by “The Lord of the Rings” collection, and the phrase “treasured” is scrawled ominously on the wall in large, glowing crimson letters.   

Sci-fi references are all over the place. There is a cafeteria known as 42, which is the reply to the query of life, the universe and all the pieces within the “The Hitchhiker’s Information to the Galaxy.” The Wizards Academy Campus attracts clear inspiration from “Harry Potter,” and has its personal King’s Cross prepare station, large chess set and assortment of unruly portraits.  

Epic is constructing a model new campus, on the identical grounds, that is impressed by epic fantasies like “Sport of Thrones” and “Star Wars.” The cranes had been embellished with large kites that soared excessive above the campus throughout final week’s occasion.

Although every workplace constructing sports activities its personal distinctive theme, the skeleton of the bodily constructions are all very related. Lengthy hallways of places of work are damaged up by the occasional convention room, and most buildings are not more than three tales tall, a design selection that Faulkner says is meant to advertise in-person conferences.

The Prairie Campus, house to the oldest places of work at Epic, has buildings named after celestial our bodies like stars, planets and galaxies.  

On the Storybook Campus, the constructing known as Thriller seems like an outdated mansion, the place one may simply think about Sherlock Holmes wandering the halls. The Castaway constructing resembles a ship, and its inside is stuffed with nautical decor.

The partitions in most of the buildings are embellished from flooring to ceiling. Trinkets, ceramics, mosaics and work sourced from native artists are displayed at each flip.

Wandering the grounds through the Customers Group Assembly, it was simple to overlook that Epic is a software program firm.

Nonetheless, on the skin of its fantasy campus, medical professionals and their sufferers have very real-world wants from this large know-how vendor. And there are many very actual critics.

Epic has for years been accused of dragging its toes round interoperability efforts that will assist streamline the trade of affected person data between distributors.

Well being-care information within the U.S. has traditionally been siloed and troublesome to maneuver round, as clinics, hospitals and well being techniques can retailer their data in a wide range of codecs throughout dozens of various distributors. The information can also be protected by federal legal guidelines just like the Well being Insurance coverage Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA.

Oracle, which is now Epic’s chief rival, says Epic is fiercely protecting over its turf. In a Might blog post, Oracle Government Vice President Ken Glueck wrote that “everybody within the trade understands that Epic’s CEO Judy Faulkner is the one largest impediment to EHR interoperability.”

Epic has of late been serving to the federal authorities set up a data exchange network known as the Trusted Change Framework and Frequent Settlement, or TEFCA, which goals to iron out each the authorized and technical necessities for sharing sufferers’ information at scale. Epic stated final month that it is planning on shifting all of its customers to TEFCA by the tip of subsequent 12 months.

However the firm nonetheless plans to make use of its in depth proprietary community. At its Customers Group Assembly, Epic introduced a lot of new generative synthetic intelligence options for its Cosmos platform, which is a deidentified affected person dataset that clinicians can use to help therapy and conduct analysis.

Seth Hain, Epic’s senior vice chairman of analysis and improvement, spoke to reporters after the keynote in a gathering room embellished like a lodge. Hain had simply introduced a lofty demo to the viewers the place an AI agent evaluated his restoration after a supposed wrist surgical procedure by cross-referencing information from Cosmos.

He stated these types of instruments might be prepared in as quickly as just a few years.

“The know-how is progressing very quickly,” Hain stated.

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