The digital health space refers to the integration of technology and health care services to improve the overall quality of health care delivery. It encompasses a wide range of innovative and emerging technologies such as wearables, telehealth, artificial intelligence, mobile health, and electronic health records (EHRs). The digital health space offers numerous benefits such as improved patient outcomes, increased access to health care, reduced costs, and improved communication and collaboration between patients and health care providers. For example, patients can now monitor their vital signs such as blood pressure and glucose levels from home using wearable devices and share the data with their doctors in real-time. Telehealth technology allows patients to consult with their health care providers remotely without having to travel to the hospital, making health care more accessible, particularly in remote or rural areas. Artificial intelligence can be used to analyze vast amounts of patient data to identify patterns, predict outcomes, and provide personalized treatment recommendations. Overall, the digital health space is rapidly evolving, and the integration of technology in health
Sound Physicians Finds EHR With Flexibility to Handle Its Approach to Telemedicine
Leaders of Sound Physicians’ telemedicine service lines describe how CharmHealth’s enterprise solution allows them to take advantage of the vendor’s APIs and development capabilities
When we write about EHR transitions these days, it is usually about a hospital system or large physician practice moving to Epic. That’s why it was interesting to interview executives from Sound Physicians’ telemedicine practice about what led them to work with CharmHealth in 2024, when their previous EHR vendor announced it would be out of business in 9 months.
Founded in 2001 and operating in over 400 hospitals, Sound Physicians provides outsourced clinical staff such as hospitalists, emergency room doctors, and critical care specialists. The practice also has a strong telemedicine business, led by Brian Carpenter, M.D. Its telemedicine service lines include a tele-hospitalist practice and post-acute care programs connected to accountable care organizations.
Joining Carpenter in our discussion was Dria McCluskey, R.N., M.S.N., senior vice president of innovation and technology, accountable care organization and telemedicine at Sound Physicians. Carpenter and McCluskey explained how they came to work with Pleasanton, Calif.-based CharmHealth because their previous tech vendors were not meeting their needs.
More than a dozen health systems across the U.S. are warning patients of a phishing attempt where scammers are trying to trick patients into providing personal information by sending emails masquerading as MyChart, Epic’s patient portal.
The cybercriminals are leveraging MyChart’s name and logo to target patients by offering a free “senior health package” or “MyChart Medicare kit,” according to a post on Texas Health’s website, one of the health systems warning patients of the scam.
Other health systems that have issued warnings include South Dakota-based Avera Health, Methodist Health System in Texas, Premier Health in Ohio, and Sentara Health in Virginia.
Dive Insight:
The message typically asks the recipient to click a link to claim an offer, leading patients to a page that directs them to provide personal information. The scam message might contain spelling mistakes or unusual wording and come from an unfamiliar email address, Texas Health said.
In July, Epic’s Trevor Berceau, director of research and development, said MyChart had seen an uptick in scammers trying to use its brand to trick patients. Scammers had sent fraudulent messages through email, text messages, and phone calls.
“The increase in attempts is due to scammers taking advantage of the popularity of the MyChart brand rather than any security concern, so you can continue to use MyChart as normal,” Berceau wrote. “If something doesn’t feel right, however, stop and check.”
Epic has cautioned users to be skeptical of free offers sent over email. Users should check the sender and web address when they receive an email, and MyChart will never ask patients to press keyboard shortcuts or change the email addresses or phone numbers associated with their accounts, Epic said.
Epic did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.
Phishing is a common cyberattack tactic with a high success rate — healthcare organizations are more susceptible to phishing than any other major industry, according to data. Additionally, artificial intelligence is making it easier for cybercriminals to craft a high volume of phishing messages that appear legitimate, heightening the threat level for the industry.
A new study just ran the most rigorous test of clinical AI accuracy I've seen, and the way they did it matters as much as what they found.
Here's the setup:
A consortium from UCSF, Harvard, University of Washington, and Stanford, with JAMA's lead statistical editor, evaluated how well AI answers real clinical questions.
They didn't use exam questions or vignettes.
They used 620 point-of-care queries physicians actually asked, then had 149 practicing physicians grade the answers, blind, head-to-head, each scoring questions in their own specialty across 30 fields.
Here are three things that made this study stand out:
1. Real questions, not benchmarks. The queries came from what physicians genuinely ask at the point of care, not standardized test items that strip out the mess of real practice.
2. Expert, specialty-matched grading. Instead of models grading models, subspecialists judged answers in their own field, on accuracy, clinical utility, source quality, verifiability, and completeness.
3. Blinded and head-to-head
Vendor identities were hidden and answers rendered identically, so raters judged the content, not the brand.
Here’s what they found:
The specialized clinical tool (OpenEvidence) outperformed the general-purpose models on every axis.
On accuracy, its win margin was +24.7%, while GPT-5.5 sat at -21.1%, with Claude and Gemini close to even.
The result held whether or not the physician had used the tool before.
When frontier models were used to grade the answers instead of humans, Claude and Gemini roughly tracked the expert rankings, but GPT-5.5 rated its own answers the winner almost every time.
Even a panel of model judges barely correlated with the physicians.
Using AI to grade AI carries real, hard-to-remove bias.
This is what fit-for-purpose evaluation looks like: real queries, expert judges
matched to the specialty, blinded comparison.
It's slower and more expensive than a benchmark, and far closer to the truth.
If you rely on clinical AI, do you actually know how the tool you trust was tested?
The number of hospitals affected by new EHR decisions dropped significantly in 2025 compared to prior years, down 40% compared to 2024 and 50% compared to 2023.
In May, a KLAS report tied the decline to ongoing uncertainty around government policy and health systems redirecting investment toward technologies such as AI and advanced analytics aimed at delivering more immediate financial or operational returns.
The slowdown was already visible a year earlier. In 2024, 272 hospitals were impacted by an EHR purchase decision, down from 319 in 2023, according to KLAS.
Even as new contract decisions have slowed, implementations from contracts signed in prior years are continuing to move forward. In early 2026, OhioHealth Morrow County Hospital in Mount Gilead, Ohio, went live with Epic as part of a $6 million IT investment, and Door County Medical Center in Sturgeon Bay, Wis., launched a new Epic system in February, having previously operated on Meditech. Western Missouri Medical Center in Warrensburg also announced plans to adopt Meditech Expanse to unify care across its hospital and 19 affiliated clinics.
Despite the overall pullback, Epic has continued to expand. Epic controlled 43.7% of the acute care EHR hospital market share in 2025, up from 31% in 2021, though it was the company’s slowest year of growth by percentage points in that span. Only two large health systems with more than 10 hospitals made enterprise-wide EHR decisions in 2025, and both selected Epic. No other vendor was chosen in a decision involving more than three multispecialty hospitals.
Health system CIOs told Becker’s they believe Epic can keep expanding its reach as it increasingly designs software products outside the traditional EHR, though some note the pool of large unconverted systems is shrinking.
“Most of the larger systems are already on Epic (except HCA), and Northwell is converting this year,” Lisa Nelson, PharmD, associate vice president of IT applications and chief applications officer of the University of Rochester (N.Y.) Medicine, told Becker’s in May. “There are only so many large systems left to convert.”
Why has this occurred?
1. Diminishing reimbursements due to CMS formulas
2. Capitation contracts
3. Diagnostic-related group payments
4. Return on Investment Calculations.
UPFRONT INVESTMENT
Cost Range by Organization Size
Organization size
Upfront investment
Ongoing cost
Small practice (1–10 physicians)
$100,000–$300,000
$50,000–$150,000/year
Mid-size practice (10–50 physicians)
$500,000–$1,000,000
15–20% of license/year
Large practice / small hospital (50–200 physicians)
Large health systems such as UCLA, Kaiser, Mayo Clinic, etc invested in EPIC five or more years ago. These systems have had time to analyze their ROI and the integration of their architectures.
Most likely, they have reached their apex and are operating in a steady state of user experience.
AI is now becoming commonplace in terms of scribing, diagnosing, and treating.
At the Becker's 11th Annual IT + Revenue Cycle Conference: The Future of AI & Digital Health, taking place September 14–17 in Chicago, healthcare executives and digital leaders from across the country will come together to explore how AI, interoperability, cybersecurity, and revenue cycle innovation are transforming care delivery, strengthening financial performance, and driving the next era of digital health. Apply for complimentary registration now.
