QuadMed, a national leader in employer-sponsored healthcare, has earned one of Epic's highest distinctions, providing independent validation of a strategic imperative the company has pursued: building a more connected, frictionless, and digitally enabled model of primary care.
Epic's Gold Stars program evaluates both the breadth of Epic capabilities an organization has implemented and how effectively those capabilities are incorporated into everyday clinical practice. For QuadMed, the recognition is about more than technology. It is independent validation that investing strategically in primary care can produce a fundamentally different model of care.
Americans make roughly one billion visits to physician offices each year, and about half of them are to primary care, the part of the healthcare system responsible for preventing disease, managing chronic conditions and coordinating nearly every other aspect of care. Yet primary care receives less than 5% of total U.S. healthcare spending, which leads to underinvestment in technology needed to support primary care providers. More than one-quarter of family physicians report dissatisfaction with their electronic health record, and nearly half rate its usability as fair or poor.
"We believe the future of healthcare depends on strengthening primary care, and that requires giving clinicians the same world class digital infrastructure that has traditionally been reserved for large health systems," said Kathryn Quadracci Flores, MD, CEO of QuadMed. "This recognition validates our long-term commitment to building one of the nation's most advanced primary care platforms. It reflects a model that combines best in class technology, deep clinical integration, and a relentless focus on the patient and clinician experience. These capabilities differentiate QuadMed by helping employers deliver better health outcomes, a more connected care experience, and a lower total cost of care."