Cedars‑Sinai links Epic to AI

Cedars-Sinai said on May 20 that its clinicians now have enterprise access to OpenEvidence inside the health system’s Epic electronic health record, giving them a way to ask clinical questions that combine a patient’s chart context with external medical evidence. The Los Angeles health system said the tool is meant to support diagnosis and treatment decisions, and that physicians, nurses, pharmacists and therapists can use it in workflow. OpenEvidence described the arrangement as a strategic partnership that integrates patient context from Epic directly within its platform. (cedars-sinai.org) Epic has separately said it is embedding AI more broadly across clinical workflows for its customers. (openevidence.com) ### How does the Cedars-Sinai setup actually work inside Epic? Cedars-Sinai said the deployment lets clinicians ask clinical questions and retrieve medical literature relevant to an individual patient’s health profile. The health system said the tool combines medical evidence with information from the patient’s electronic health record, rather than requiring clinicians to switch to a separate reference product. OpenEvidence said on May 20 that the integration brings patient context from Epic directly into OpenEvidence. The company said clinicians can use natural-language prompts and receive answers grounded in peer-reviewed literature and clinical guidelines. (cedars-sinai.org) ### Who at Cedars-Sinai is expected to use it? Cedars-Sinai said the rollout covers physicians, nurses, pharmacists and therapists. That makes the deployment broader than a physician-only reference tool and places it in day-to-day clinical workflow across multiple care roles, according to the health system’s announcement. (cedars-sinai.org) Shaun Miller, Cedars-Sinai’s chief health informatics officer, said in a separate Cedars-Sinai interview that the organization’s AI goals are “improved patient outcomes and clinician efficiency.” In that interview, he pointed to Epic-based AI tools as part of Cedars-Sinai’s informatics strategy. (openevidence.com) ### What makes this different from a standalone medical chatbot? OpenEvidence said its platform is grounded in peer-reviewed sources including journals and clinical references, and Cedars-Sinai said the new deployment links that evidence to the individual patient record. That means the query starts with the chart and not just a generic prompt, based on the companies’ descriptions. (cedars-sinai.org) Epic has been pushing the same embedded model. Epic said more than 85% of its customers now use Epic AI, and the company has highlighted tools that summarize notes, help with documentation and surface patient details inside the record clinicians already use. (cedars-sinai.org) ### Is Cedars-Sinai the only health system doing this with OpenEvidence? OpenEvidence said in March that Mount Sinai Health System would use the platform inside Epic so clinical staff could ask medical questions in natural language and get answers grounded in literature and guidelines. In February, OpenEvidence said Sutter Health would also launch the platform within Epic workflows for clinicians across its system. (cedars-sinai.org) Those earlier announcements show Cedars-Sinai is part of a wider push by health systems to put evidence tools inside the chart rather than alongside it. The companies’ announcements describe the same pattern: natural-language search, Epic workflow integration and answers tied to published evidence. (epic.com) ### What comes next from here? Cedars-Sinai has not published a timeline for additional phases beyond the enterprise rollout announced on May 20. OpenEvidence’s announcements page shows a series of recent health-system partnerships, including Cedars-Sinai, Mount Sinai and Sutter Health, while Epic has continued to add clinician-facing AI products such as AI Charting and note summarization across its platform. (openevidence.com 1) (openevidence.com 2)