Dive Brief:

• Epic Systems invests one-half of its operating expenses on research and development, Epic founder Judy Faulkner told Healthcare IT News.
• Allscripts invests 34% of operating expenses on research and development, Cerner invests 19%, and athenahealth invests 10%, SEC filings show
• As a percentage of operating expenses, Epic also spends more than Amazon, Apple, and Google on research and development. 

Dive Insight:

Epic Systems spends a significant amount of its operating expenses on research and development, according to founder Judy Faulkner. Epic’s investments in research and development outpaces not only its competitors in the health IT sphere, but also tech giants like Amazon, Apple, and Google.

While Epic, a private company, doesn’t have to report research and development spending, the one-half of operating expenses quoted by Faulkner eclipses the 45% spent by Google, the 36% spent by Apple, and the 18% spent by Amazon.

One reason why Epic invests so much money into research and development is because it hasn’t grown by acquiring new companies and technologies. Rather than tinkering around trying to make disparate technologies work together, Epic builds new products and components from scratch.