Affineon Health vs Epic In Basket Art (2026)
Both use AI on the clinical inbox, for different jobs. Affineon's Labs Core closes normal results, and abnormal results inside parameters the practice sets, and notifies the patient. For results that need the provider, it trends labs, calculates ASCVD and CKD risk and drafts a patient note. Rx Renewals checks each renewal against a configurable protocol. Epic's In Basket message drafting writes potential replies to patients' medical advice messages, using chart context and prompts each health system configures. Nothing reaches the patient until a clinician sends it. The feature is available to Epic customers alone and sits inside Epic's wider Art set of clinician AI. Choose Affineon to close routine results and renewals on protocol in athenahealth; choose Epic's drafting for clinician reviewed replies inside an Epic system you already run.
- You run athenahealth and want routine results closed on your own thresholds.
- Renewal requests should show which protocol guidelines are met.
- A published price per provider per month suits how you buy.
- You run Epic and want drafted replies to patients' medical advice messages.
- Every reply should wait for a clinician to send it.
- You want a feature with independent peer reviewed evaluations behind it.
This comparison is published by AI Health Index, an independent research platform that compares healthcare AI vendors objectively. Affineon Health and Epic In Basket Art are each graded against the same capability taxonomy, from each vendor's own public materials and the regulatory record, under the AI Health Index verification standard. No vendor pays for placement, and no vendor has reviewed this page. How this evidence is graded
Plain facts
| Fact | Affineon Health | Epic In Basket Art |
|---|---|---|
| Primary category | Clinical Inbox & Messaging AI | Clinical Inbox & Messaging AI |
| Founded | Not recorded | 1979 |
| Headquarters | Denver, Colorado | Verona, Wisconsin |
| Website | affineon.com | epic.com |
Side by Side
Select any grade to read the note behind it.
Each vendor in one paragraph
Written to be quoted whole. Each paragraph opens the AI Health Index profile of the vendor: what the product is, who buys it and what it does.
Affineon Health sells an AI agent for the clinical inbox of ambulatory practices, working inside the electronic health record in two workflows. Labs Core closes normal results, and abnormal results inside parameters the practice sets, and notifies the patient; routes CC'd results to staff; and for results that need the provider, summarizes and trends the labs, calculates ASCVD and CKD risk, and drafts a note to the patient for the provider to review and send.
Source: AI Health Index, September 2026
Message drafting in Epic's In Basket: a generative AI feature that drafts potential replies to patients' medical advice messages for a clinician to use, edit or discard. Epic introduced it in 2023 with Microsoft as its first GPT-4 use case in the record. Art stands for Augmented Response Technology, and Epic now uses the name for its AI for clinicians as a whole, a set of more than thirty features that includes AI Charting, chart summaries and Patient Message Insights.
Source: AI Health Index, September 2026
Questions buyers ask
How do Affineon Health and Epic In Basket Art work with the EHR?
For Affineon Health, the Embed program offers the agent to EHR vendors, AI scribes and other health technology companies to sell under their own brands (Commure has joined), which may be the route to other systems. Whether it runs on any other record system today is not stated.
Epic's interoperability page says Care Everywhere exchanges more than 30 million patient records a day, about half with organizations on a different record system, with a published list of live organizations, alongside FHIR APIs for patient-directed exchange and more than 1,000 public API and interface specifications on open.epic. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified September 30, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
How are Affineon Health and Epic In Basket Art priced and sold?
In Affineon Health's case, the unit of charge is the provider per month, and the Labs Core page puts the cost at 'around $4 per day'. There is no route to start without a sales conversation: every call to action is a demo request or 'Contact Sales', and the 'Try Affineon risk-free.
The feature is available only to Epic customers, switched on inside their Epic installation, and Epic's Artificial Intelligence page directs community members to their Epic representatives to learn more. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified September 30, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
What evidence is published for Affineon Health and Epic In Basket Art?
With Affineon Health, the September 2025 case study names Annapolis Internal Medicine and Dr. Titus Abraham and reports that monthly inbox volume dropped 53 percent after adoption, with about 3,664 lab results handled automatically and 3,500 renewals expedited each month; it gives no baseline period, no measurement method and no provider count.
Epic's Art page says clinicians 'can respond to patient messages faster', and its Mayo Clinic story reports initial pilots saving nurses about 30 seconds per message. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified September 30, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
How much do Affineon Health and Epic In Basket Art leave to the clinician?
For Affineon Health, the thresholds are set by the practice ('All settings are configurable at the practice level so doctors stay in control'), and the Embed page sells the agent as triaging the provider inbox '24 hours a day, 365 days a year', which is the scope this oversight has to cover.
With Epic In Basket Art, a related feature translates incoming Spanish messages and shows a translated preview so a clinician can check 'whether the message requires urgent action'; the urgency judgment stays with the clinician. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified September 30, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Related comparisons
Other published head to head assessments involving these vendors or their closest peers. The full set for this category is on the Clinical Inbox & Messaging AI page.
Both records were reviewed on this site in September 2026. Affineon closes some results and messages the patient with no clinician involved, on thresholds the practice sets. Epic's drafts reach a patient once a clinician sends them. Neither states a regulatory position. Neither states a business associate position for the product. Neither publishes how its models are tested. Two independent studies of Epic's drafting ran at Stanford Health Care and UC San Diego Health (JAMA Network Open, 2024). At Stanford, 162 clinicians used drafts for 20 percent of messages and reply times did not change. Task load and exhaustion scores fell. Affineon's Annapolis Internal Medicine figure, a 53 percent drop in monthly inbox volume, gives no baseline period or method. Affineon publishes prices from $75 to $175 per provider per month. Epic publishes no price.
Ask Epic whether drafting is in your current license, and ask Affineon how often an auto closed result later needed a clinician.