What Epic Reported About Art and Memorial Hermann Test Result Messages

Epic said on 8 September 2026 that Memorial Hermann Health System clinicians are using Art, its AI assistant built into the record, to draft patient-friendly notes when they review lab and imaging results. Reporting Memorial Hermann's data, it says patients sent 32 percent fewer follow-up messages about test results when the clinician started from Art's draft, that Art has helped write more than 55,000 messages to patients, and that clinicians starting from the draft saved an average of nine seconds per result comment. Dr Ryan Walsh, chief medical information officer at Memorial Hermann, is quoted saying the draft helps produce more thorough follow-up notes that clinicians review, edit and personalise before sharing.

Why the Epic Art Results Matter to Health Systems Weighing Point Solutions

Nine seconds per comment sounds trivial and is the wrong number to judge this on. Across 55,000 messages it adds up, but the 32 percent fall in follow-up questions is the real saving, because an inbound patient message costs a clinician far more than nine seconds to answer. This also shows why Epic matters in this part of the directory: a function like this arriving inside the record a health system already owns is the main competitor to any point solution, and no new contract was signed to get it. The clinician still reviews and sends every message, so this is drafting rather than autonomous communication.

Where the Epic Update Comes From

Epic is the original record behind this update. It tells us what the company published. This brief adds the market context and the method we would use to test the development against other evidence.

Epic original source.

How We Would Research the Epic Art Results

The source gives us the starting point. This is how we would build the next layer of research around it.

  1. We would ask Memorial Hermann whether the 32 percent fall was measured against the same clinicians before Art or against colleagues not using it.
  2. Then we would ask how often a clinician rewrites the draft rather than editing it, since a draft that gets discarded costs time instead of saving it.
  3. We would ask what review happens on the plain-language explanation itself, because the risk here is a confident explanation of an ambiguous result.