ChatGPT Health now connects to patient medical records

OpenAI has added a new feature to ChatGPT Health that lets doctors access patient medical records more easily. The update creates a connection with Epic, which is the software system that most hospitals and clinics use to store and manage patient information.

Here's what this means in practice: instead of opening a separate hospital computer system to look up a patient's history, test results, or medications, a doctor can now ask ChatGPT Health to pull that information directly. It works like connecting two apps on your phone so they can share information automatically. The connection is read-only, which means doctors can see and review patient data through ChatGPT, but they cannot change or delete anything — keeping patient records secure.

Why does this matter? For busy clinicians, this saves time. Instead of switching between multiple programs and systems, they have one place to view patient information and potentially get help analyzing it. However, patient privacy remains protected because doctors still see only their own patients' data, and the system doesn't allow changes to be made through ChatGPT Health.

This is part of a larger trend: AI tools are increasingly being built directly into the systems doctors already use every day, rather than being separate applications they have to learn separately.