Epic Sepsis Model vs Luminare (2026)
Both address sepsis in hospitalized patients, and they disagree about the problem. The Epic Sepsis Model is a prediction model built into Epic's record, scoring adult emergency and hospitalized patients every 15 minutes and alerting when a score crosses the threshold each health system sets. Outside researchers have revalidated it on their own data. Luminare argues that prediction is not the bottleneck: its position, argued in a peer reviewed review co authored by its chief executive, is that outcomes stall because clinical response lags detection, so it sells screening and intervention software built around the response. Its screening rests on established SIRS criteria rather than a learned model, though it describes itself as artificial intelligence. Choose the Epic model for prediction inside Epic; choose Luminare if your gap is acting on sepsis alerts, not raising them.
- Your hospital runs Epic and wants prediction inside the record.
- Independent revalidation matters to your committee.
- Your team will set and monitor the threshold.
- Your gap is responding to sepsis alerts, not generating them.
- Screening should lead straight into an intervention workflow.
- You are comfortable with established criteria rather than a learned model.
This comparison is published by AI Health Index, an independent research platform that compares healthcare AI vendors objectively. Epic Sepsis Model and Luminare 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 | Epic Sepsis Model | Luminare |
|---|---|---|
| Primary category | Inpatient Deterioration & Risk Monitoring | Inpatient Deterioration & Risk Monitoring |
| Founded | 1979 | 2014 |
| Headquarters | Verona, Wisconsin, United States | Houston, Texas, United States |
| Website | epic.com | luminare.io |
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.
The Epic Sepsis Model is the sepsis prediction model built into Epic's electronic health record. It scores adult emergency and hospitalized patients every 15 minutes and alerts clinicians when a score crosses the threshold each health system sets. Version 1 (2018) was a penalized logistic regression.
Source: AI Health Index, September 2026
Luminare sells inpatient sepsis screening and intervention software, and its founding argument is that better prediction is not the problem. The company's position, stated on its own site and argued in a peer reviewed review article co authored by its chief executive, is that the health technology industry has concentrated on speed of detection while outcomes stall because clinical staff frequently fail to act on the alert.
Source: AI Health Index, September 2026
Questions buyers ask
How are Epic Sepsis Model and Luminare priced and sold?
The model is available only to Epic customers, inside Epic, and is switched on by the health system; the Wong paper records Epic's figure of 95 organizations on version 2 and more than 100 still on version 1 in August 2025.
With Luminare, the home page says pricing is "based on a combination of your patient volume as well as your expected ROI", with return on investment typically in two to six months, so a hospital can see what drives the cost before contact. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified September 29, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Which settings and specialties do Epic Sepsis Model and Luminare cover?
In Epic Sepsis Model's case, coverage is adults only, with no pediatric model. Performance varies widely by site, so the validated settings show where the model has been tested, not how it will perform at a new hospital.
For Luminare, the wider company also sells products unrelated to sepsis screening, including a vaccination management platform, an emergency response system, a syndromic screening tool and a record abstraction product named Leonardo, with public sector customers including state health departments, FEMA and Department of Defense. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified September 29, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
How much do Epic Sepsis Model and Luminare leave to the clinician?
Positive predictive value at those thresholds ran from 13 to 26 percent, alerts clustered in the hours after admission, and it was the investigators, not Epic, who modeled an eight hour silencing rule to make the volume workable; Epic publishes no expected alert burden, lead time or silencing guidance.
Luminare requires the nurse's assessment as part of the screen, so the system cannot produce an output that a clinician passively ignores. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified September 29, 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 Inpatient Deterioration & Risk Monitoring page.
Epic's record was reviewed on this site in September 2026; Luminare's site could not be read at review, so parts of its record rest on earlier reads. Neither publishes a price. Epic states no regulatory position for its model, and Luminare's page runs from a 30 to 50 percent sepsis mortality rate to lives saved without citing a study of its own product.
Ask Luminare which study supports its outcome claims, and ask Epic what alert burden other hospitals measured.