OpenAI expands healthcare AI integration with Epic and launches new data plug-in

OpenAI announced today that it is integrating ChatGPT Health with Epic’s electronic health record (EHR) system, which manages data for over 325 million patients. This integration allows clinicians to import patient data and use AI to ask questions, with some systems enabling direct access to ChatGPT within EHR workflows. The company emphasized that the integration provides read-only access to health records, with AI not writing anything back. OpenAI also introduced a new Healthcare Public Data plug-in, which can fetch information from sources like ClinicalTrials.gov and PubMed, aiding healthcare workers in synthesizing data for trial eligibility and medication identifiers. In addition, OpenAI is allowing organizations with a Business Associate Agreement to use ChatGPT Work, Codex, and connectors in their workspace for compliant workflows. Last month, OpenAI launched ChatGPT for health to all U.S. consumers, with users asking 300 million health-related queries weekly. Despite deep integrations, the company reiterated that AI is not suitable for diagnosis or treatment. OpenAI reported that 99.1% of responses from physicians across 27 clinical use cases were safe, though even a few unsafe answers could lead to harmful results. A Florida-based pastor and family members of a user have sued the company over alleged harmful recommendations from ChatGPT.