Epic’s healthcare-native ERP may prove to be either a true market disruptor or a long-term strategic bet that will gradually force health systems to rethink their application stacks. Signals from recent Epic user conferences and HIMSS25 suggest the latter—a slow, deliberate push toward a natively integrated ERP that complements Epic’s expanding AI roadmap and seeks to bring more of a health system’s operational backbone into the Epic ecosystem.
Healthcare‑Native ERP
At this year’s Epic User Group Meeting (UGM), Epic briefed customers on progress toward a native, healthcare‑focused ERP designed to work seamlessly with the Epic electronic health record (EHR). The goal reportedly is to reduce reliance on external ERP integrations by offering an operational platform that shares the same data model as the core clinical system.
According to recent analysis, the functional roadmap spans three domains:
- Workforce management—time and attendance, credentialing, staffing and scheduling, payroll, HR
- Supply chain/materials management—inventory, procurement, vendor and contract management, product catalog
- Financials—general ledger, cost accounting, budgeting, accounts payable
Epic’s own executives reinforce this is being built “as healthcare‑focused from the ground up,” in contrast to industry‑agnostic ERPs that are adapted into healthcare. Seth Howard, Epic’s EVP of R&D, has said customers “have expressed a need for an ERP solution that’s integrated with their EHR,” and that a natively integrated ERP can, for example, predict supply needs based on upcoming surgeries and case backlogs or use EHR data to analyze staffing metrics like overtime and forecast future needs.
Timelines remain cautious, as 2027 is the earliest many in the market expect Epic’s ERP to be robust enough to meaningfully support health‑system operations, with full depth across all domains taking longer. Epic has already released and piloted individual components such as a staff scheduling tool (Teamwork), but it has “not disclosed the names of these initial customers or provided a timeline for a full‑scale rollout.”
One Platform vs Best‑of‑Breed
Today, most Epic customers combine Epic’s EHR/financials with a separate ERP from Oracle, Workday, or Infor, and frequently add Strata or similar platforms for advanced cost accounting, budgeting, and performance analytics. Experts summarize the current best‑of‑breed model this way:
- Pros include deep functionality in finance, supply chain, and HCM, plus enhanced cost accounting and margin insight from tools like Strata
- Cons include multiple vendor contracts, complex EHR-ERP-analytics integrations, higher IT overhead and data latency.
In contrast, Epic’s native ERP model promises reduced interfaces and tighter alignment between clinical, financial, and workforce data, with a shared data model across care delivery and operations and fewer moving parts for IT teams to maintain. The potential advantages experts flag include fewer interfaces (and lower IT burden) and a smoother end‑user experience for Epic‑first organizations; the downsides include immature modules, functional depth that may lag Oracle/Workday/Infor in core finance and supply chain, and gaps in advanced cost accounting that still require tools like Strata.
Epic’s own staff reportedly will implement and support the ERP, which may appeal to health systems that prefer a single primary vendor relationship.
AI as Gravitational Pull
The ERP work is unfolding alongside Epic’s broader AI strategy, which HealthLeaders in September 2025 described as a “grand AI gamble” to build a connected health universe tethered by hundreds of AI‑infused tools and services. At Epic’s 2025 UGM, CEO Judy Faulkner touted hundreds of AI features already available and hundreds more in the pipeline, positioning Epic as the gravitational center for health systems that want integrated AI across clinical and operational workflows.
Key AI components include:
- Emmie, a MyChart bot that helps patients with scheduling, navigation, and education
- Art, a co‑pilot to assist clinicians with admin tasks, data retrieval, and summarization
- Penny, a revenue‑cycle co‑pilot for billing and financial operations.
Epic also highlighted an ambient AI tool developed with Microsoft, embedded into the EHR to counter a crowded market of third‑party ambient documentation vendors and encourage health systems to consolidate on Epic’s own solution. In interviews around HIMSS25, Howard said Epic has “woven AI into the foundational capabilities” of its platform, is building an agentic platform with around 125 generative AI features in development, and is using models like OpenAI’s via an infrastructure that can support multiple LLM providers.
Taken together, the ERP roadmap and AI agenda reinforce Epic’s pitch that being “in the Epic orbit” guarantees access to the latest integrated capabilities—from clinical agents to staffing forecasts to supply‑chain predictions—while raising questions about how open that universe will be to non‑Epic systems.
What This Means for ERP Insiders
Epic’s ERP move is a strategic option, not an immediate replacement. With meaningful breadth not expected before 2027, Epic’s ERP is unlikely to displace Oracle, Workday, or Infor in the short term, especially for finance and supply chain leaders who rely on mature capabilities and established analytics ecosystems. ERP programs in Epic shops should treat it as a long‑term scenario to model in roadmaps and requests for proposals, not as a near‑term answer to current gaps.
The real differentiator is data and AI unification, not ERP labels. Epic’s pitch hinges on combining EHR, ERP, and AI co‑pilots around a shared data model and operational platform. For ERP leaders, the key question is less “Epic vs Oracle/Workday/Infor” and more how tightly clinical, workforce, and financial data need to be coupled to support next‑generation planning, costing, and automation.
Ecosystem openness and vendor concentration risk need explicit governance. Epic’s growing AI and ERP footprint may deliver real simplification for Epic‑first organizations, but it also increases dependency on a single vendor and raises fresh interoperability questions for adjacent systems. Boards and CIOs should pair any Epic consolidation strategy with clear exit and integration plans, ongoing participation in national interoperability frameworks, and a deliberate stance on where best‑of‑breed still matters.
