Open@Epic to Return in 2026 as Healthcare Data Sharing Accelerates
April 6, 2026
Conference supports ongoing collaboration between app developers and Epic, delivering more ways for patients to manage their health.
The Open@Epic Conference will bring app developers, healthcare experts, and Epic staff together to advance secure data sharing.
“What stands out about Open@Epic is how collaborative it feels,” Andrew Spevacek, EHR Partnerships Lead at Wolters Kluwer Health said. “You have Epic staff, app developers, and standards experts all rolling up their sleeves together, with a shared goal of improving healthcare through a more connected data ecosystem. This conference doesn’t just generate ideas—it turns them into action.”
The first Open@Epic conference, held in September 2025, spurred rapid growth in app connections to Epic. Since then:
More patients are using connected apps. Patient-directed data exchanges using Epic APIs increased from about 3.1 billion per month in September 2025 to about 3.7 billion today. Patients are increasingly using apps to help manage their blood pressure, adhere to their prescriptions, and more.
Health systems have more options. More than 1,000 apps are now listed in Showroom, the marketplace for apps that connect with Epic—an addition of over 200 apps since September 2025. The number of Showroom apps with Toolbox designation—which indicates use of Epic-recommended integration approaches for specific use cases—has grown by about 20%. New Toolbox categories—including Collaborative Care Plans, ECG Management, and Nursing Quality Metrics—now have app listings, giving health systems more integration options.
App developers are accelerating innovation. The number of developers with more than one Toolbox listing rose by nearly 40% since September 2025, indicating that developers find Epic’s recommendations and guidance useful enough to build and release multiple products. Epic has also seen an over 25% increase in the number of app developers using its Vendor Services program, which provides additional resources.
New connections are available. At the 2025 conference, attendees identified concrete priorities to improve healthcare. These ideas are now becoming reality. For example, Epic has released more than 50 new APIs to improve provider-payer communication and speed prior authorization approvals—targeting one of healthcare’s most persistent administrative burdens. Epic also released APIs to support location-aware safety alerts for clinical staff in potentially dangerous situations, with several developers now building connected apps to support health systems’ workplace safety.
“Open@Epic 2025 was an energizing event, and many of the ideas discussed there are now reality,” Seth Howard, Epic’s Executive Vice President of R&D said. “We’re looking forward to bringing everyone together again to keep building on that momentum.”
The second Open@Epic will be held in Verona, Wis. on Wednesday, October 21 and Thursday, October 22, 2026. Registration opens on July 16. Details and session information are available at open.epic.com/Conference.
More News from Epic
Automated Outreach Helps Patients Keep Millions of Appointments
With Epic’s Hello World communication platform, health systems keep patients connected to their care teams through text messages and voice calls. Its newest capability automatically shows patients that the call is coming from the health system, so they know to pick up.
At Agent Factory Build-A-Thon, Health Systems Create Their Own AI Agents
Clinical, operational, and technical staff from health systems are working together to turn their ideas into agents that can help improve patient outcomes, increase patient engagement, reduce administrative burden, and more.
The AI-supported outpatient office visit helps clinicians arrive prepared, anticipates what they need in the room, and lines up documentation and orders for clinician review before the visit ends.
