News 3/18/26
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Healthcare pricing and payment platform vendor Turquoise Health raises a $40 million Series C funding round.
Reader Comments
From ExecPhysicianCalifornia: “Re: wrongful death complaint filed against Epic. The case is Fischman v. Epic Systems Corporation, Case No. 3:26‑cv‑00770‑D, was filed on March 10, 2026.” Thanks for those details, which allowed me to download the filing. Summary:
- The lawsuit was filed by Gallit Fischman, whose father died after his transplant-related drug was switched at UT Southwestern.
- She previously filed a personal injury malpractice lawsuit against UT Southwestern, alleging that the organization prioritized clinical studies over patient needs. She withdrew that suit before filing this one against Epic.
- In her lawsuit against Epic, which she filed without attorney representation, she cites wrongful death, product liability, and related claims. Her complaint says, “Epic-generated medical record did not permit reconstruction of a coherent medication timeline, identification of active versus discontinued medications, or reliable differentiation between current and historical clinical information.”
- The lawsuit claims that medications can continue to display in Epic after being discontinued and that medication reconciliation does not require specific clinician action, allowing outdated entries to persist. She argues that hospitals cannot change Epic’s architecture.
- She repeatedly argues that the fault lies with Epic, not with the clinician or hospital, and that her claims do not require reviewing physician treatment decisions or standards of care as would be required in a malpractice case.
- Her claims appear to rely largely on her own review of the Epic-generated medical record, in which she says that she could not reconstruct the medication timeline.
- A possible motivation is that she may have concluded from the UT Southwestern lawsuit that malpractice claims are difficult to pursue, since they require expert testimony and proof of a clinical mistake. Texas is generally considered a clinician-friendly state for malpractice litigation.
- Her case against Epic instead hinges on Texas product liability law, which courts do not always apply consistently to software. The question is whether an EHR is considered a product or a service. The claim is easier to assert than malpractice and could also give her access to UT Southwestern records without meeting malpractice lawsuit requirements, which would be useful if her malpractice lawsuit is revived.
- The plaintiff’s chances of winning, or even surviving Epic’s likely motion to dismiss, appear low. Epic will likely argue that it has no duty to the patient, that an EHR is not a product under Texas law, that hospitals control configuration choices, that clinicians still exercise independent judgment, and that any claim of causation is speculative.
- Epic will likely move to dismiss, which may clarify whether courts view EHR software as a regulated product or simply a tool used by clinicians.
From Dr. Nick: “Re: ‘Scrubs.’ The relaunch covers the pit stop analogy, where we are forced into RVUs and timed interactions that demand speed over safety or compassion, amongst other things.” Trivia: the original was filmed in North Hollywood Medical Center, which was closed in 1998, torn down in 2011, and replaced with apartments. Patients kept showing up in the lobby because they saw prop ambulances parked outside.
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Sutter Health will acquire Allina Health, with the California-only system pledging to invest $2 billion in Allina and allowing it to continue using the Allina Health name. The combined organization will have $26 billion in revenue, 39 hospitals, 88,000 employees, and 400 care sites. I believe they both use Epic.
Sales
- West Cancer Center & Research Institute selects the Unified Digital Patient Experience Platform from Willowglade Technologies.
- Summit Health will deploy Navina’s AI-powered system for value-based care.
Announcements and Implementations
Google removes the “What People Suggest” feature from its search, which provided AI-generated summaries of crowdsourced medical advice.
Google says that it will invest $10 million to fund organizations that incorporate AI in clinician education. The company also will add an “Ask” button to health videos on YouTube so that users can request AI explanations, add a connection to continuous glucose monitors in Health Connect, and link to medical records in the Fitbit app.
Philips announces a cloud-enabled version of its IntelliSite Pathology Solution on HealthSuite.
Southeast Georgia Health System will implement digital billing software from RevSpring later this month.
West Virginia University Medicine expands its pilot of Abridge’s AI-based clinical documentation software to 1,200 clinicians.
In Colorado, Heart of the Rockies Regional Medical Center will implement Epic through a Community Connect arrangement with Aspen Valley Health.
Censinet announces GA of GRC AI, an automated governance, risk, and compliance platform; and additional enhancements to its healthcare cybersecurity risk-management solutions.
Azara Healthcare will integrate its population health and value-based care solutions with Meditech Expanse.
Privacy and Security
Vanderbilt University Medical Center (TN) attributes its brief EHR downtime early Monday morning to an Epic-related outage. Epic noted that it was “aware of one healthcare organization experiencing technical issues.”
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Perelman School of Medicine researchers determine that telemedicine visits at Penn Medicine are less expensive than in-person visits after analyzing EHR and billing data from 160,000 visits conducted over four months. They found that initial virtual visits were charged $96 versus $509 for the in-person visit. Telemedicine patients had one fewer follow-up visits within 30 days of their first appointment than did in-person patients.
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- Bizmatics will exhibit at ASIPP 2026 March 19-21 in New Orleans.
- Divurgent congratulates customer Riverview Health (IN) on its recent Epic go-live.
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My theory is that Gallit is using the EHR case to try and get discovery to refile the Texas Health suit.
https://healthapiguy.substack.com/p/fischmann-v-epic-the-longshot
Re: Fischman v. Epic Systems Corporation
Seems to me there’s already a story to tell here. The case appears to determinedly avoid alleging physician misconduct. Makes even more sense when you factor in Texas being especially protective of physicians when it comes to malpractice.
Ms. Fischman is also going to struggle unless she can establish some bona fides as BOTH an expert clinician, and an expert with respect to the Epic EMR.
Finally, let’s examine her medical record information. Odds approach 100% that she’s not looking at the med rec in it’s original electronic form. She’s almost certainly looking at a download/extract. Perhaps a CDA or something like that. It doesn’t take much to miss or misinterpret a data element, especially if you aren’t used to reading them.
So no, I strongly doubt this lawsuit will be successful. Nevertheless, I sympathize with a woman who has lost her father. I too lost a parent under care, and my family had questions about the care my parent received.
The way forward for me was to accept that my parent was elderly, fragile, and more aggressive care would have (at best) delayed her death by a year or two. Ms. Fischman’s situation may be different so I don’t want to provide advice or go any farther towards comparisons. What I’m more interested in is that the energy of grief can be channeled, and some activities are more productive and positive than others.
I’m a little curious about the possibility of this lawsuit having larger political rammifications. Texas and its AG have used the legal system in the past for political grandstanding and Epic and Judy are well known liberal bugaboos to conservatives. Is there going to be something more here than just the fundamentals of the case? Is there an opportunity for Ken Paxton to stoop lower than he usually does (if that’s even possible)
Weird that Google can acknowledge its crowdsourced medical advice was wrong, but escape penalties for doing it wantonly at scale.