Epic unveils AI-driven Ergo Visit at 2026 UGM

By Judy Faulkner's estimate, only about 20% of the 2026 Users Group Meeting audience knew the Latin meaning of Ergo, but that didn't stop the company from unveiling Ergo Visit this week to help providers prepare for appointments and leverage AI for care planning.

Ergo means "therefore," and Epic's new system uses AI and human intelligence to weave patient information into actionable takeaways for providers, according to the company. In essence, it's the therefore of all the data stored in the Epic EHR, MyChart patient portal and Cosmos, Epic's deidentified electronic database.

Together, these resources pull together information across various points in the patient journey. With provider expertise, Epic said that Ergo Visit drives better, more efficient care.

In advance of a visit, a clinician could call on Art, Epic's ambient AI charting capability, to find relevant topics for the visit, including visit reason and preventive screenings due. Art works with Emmie, Epic's patient-facing AI tool found within the patient portal, to pull together a list of possible topics for the physician to address during the visit.

During the visit, clinicians have the option to query Art in real time as it's charting the encounter, Faulkner revealed during her executive address. This might help clinicians find relevant information from Care Everywhere or even insights from Cosmos.

That Cosmos integration is essential, according to Faulkner, because it powers Best Care Choices for My Patient, an element of Ergo that helps healthcare providers plan care for their patients.

"One of my personal favorites is Best Care Choices for My Patient," Faulkner stated. " That helps clinicians make well-informed decisions."

Best Care Choices for My Patient is powered by the 320 million deidentified patient datasets in Cosmos.

"It looks at the diagnosis and lets the clinician know how common or uncommon the diagnosis is for lookalike patients," Faulkner explained. "And if other diagnoses are more common for the same presentation, it lets you know that's important for you to get treatment right."

Best Care Choices for My Patient also lets clinicians use Cosmos to assess the different treatment courses taken by lookalike patients, or patients who are medically and demographically similar. This provides insights not just into the evidence base but also into what has worked for similar patients. It has been useful to 60 early-adopter organizations that have sometimes found that the most common medication is not the best medication for a certain type of patient.

According to Faulkner, the beauty of Ergo Visit is the fusion of human intelligence and AI.

"They have different strengths, and it's fun to think about," she told the UGM crowd.

"Human beings bring knowledge from experience, including inspiration, judgment, common sense and empathy. But the big thing I thought about was that human beings also bring is intuition," which is a merger of instinct and intellect, Faulkner added.

Humans should not and cannot be kept out of the loop in patient care planning, but there is room for AI to enhance the process.

"AI brings pattern recognition across huge data sets and the ability to iterate quickly," Faulkner said. "Plus, it's always available, and it never gets tired."

The system is now live at Ochsner Health and with five physicians within Epic's Garden Plot collaborative.

Sara Heath is an executive editor at Xtelligent Healthcare Media, where she covers patient engagement, healthcare policy and health IT.