OpenAI & Epic: ChatGPT Accesses Patient Records

OpenAI is now connecting patient records from Epic, the largest electronic health record system, directly into ChatGPT. Clinicians at organizations using this integration can ask questions like, "What has changed since this patient's last visit?" The system then assembles answers from appointment notes, lab results, medications, and specialist documents. This integration is supported by an American Business Associate Agreement, which allows handling of protected health information under HIPAA. OpenAI also added a Healthcare Public Data plugin, providing structured access to nine official datasets such as ClinicalTrials.gov and PubMed. Access to these features is tiered. ChatGPT for Healthcare customers get the Epic integration, while ChatGPT Enterprise customers can request it. Individual clinicians in the US only get the public data plugin. OpenAI states that content shared with ChatGPT for Healthcare is not used to train its models. The company reports that physicians rated 99.1% of over 700,000 model responses as "safe." The bottom line is this integration aims to provide clinicians with quick access to patient information, but its availability and legal framework are specific to the US.