Epieme is a civic intelligence project for patient-safety public records. It helps patients, journalists, regulators, researchers, attorneys, hospital quality officers, and advocates locate records faster without treating an AI summary as the source of truth.
What Epieme is
A source-linked index for public patient-safety records, credentialing signals, legislation, and related civic context.
What Epieme is not
Not medical advice, not legal advice, not a hospital quality score, not a substitute for clinical review, and not the official source.
"The summary is useful only when the official record remains one click away."
Patients and families
Need a plain path from a record to the public source.
Journalists
Need citations, dates, contact paths, and correction history.
Hospital quality officers
Need provenance, definitions, limits, and dispute process.
Researchers and regulators
Need reproducible definitions, licensing terms, and exports.
"A skeptical reader should be able to reproduce one claim before trusting a thousand."
Source rows use the same fields so readers can compare coverage without guessing what is current, licensed, partial, or planned. Where the final source list is not verified, this page marks it as a placeholder instead of implying coverage.
| Name | Origin | Coverage | Cadence | Format | License | Limitations | Last pulled | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| State adverse-event reports | State health departments | Partial State-by-state | Placeholder: varies by state | PDF, HTML, CSV where available | Public record, source-specific terms | Reporting rules vary. Voluntary systems undercount. | Placeholder | State pages |
| Medical board actions | State licensing boards | Partial Placeholder | Placeholder: weekly or monthly | HTML, PDF, search portals | Public record, source-specific terms | Names, dates, and categories differ by board. | Placeholder | Source pages |
| Patient-safety legislation | State legislative sources and bill APIs | Partial 50-state plan | Daily during sessions, placeholder | API, HTML | Source-specific terms | Bill text can lag status changes. | Placeholder | States |
| Public petitions and testimony | Public petition pages, hearings, public comments | Planned Source-dependent | Placeholder | HTML, PDF, CSV where available | Source-specific terms | May include advocacy framing. Needs source separation. | Placeholder | Roadmap |
Technical source template
Each per-source page should include: source owner, retrieval method, schema mapping, retry policy, parser version, validation checks, terms-of-use note, known missing fields, and contact path for the source owner.
Per-source pages
Placeholder: source micro-methodology pages should live at
stable URLs such as
/methodology/sources/cms-care-compare and
/methodology/sources/maine-medical-board. Until
those pages are live, Epieme should not imply complete source
documentation.
Per-state methodology
Placeholder: each state page should disclose coverage, source mix, statutory context, FOIA status, known gaps, public-records request log, and last review date.
The diagram is a map, not the methodology itself. Each gate must link to a source-level or state-level method page as those pages become available.
- 01 Source Official record, FOIA response, or public filing.
- 02 Ingest Pull, archive, checksum, and log retrieval.
- 03 Normalize Map names, dates, locations, categories.
- 04 Verify Classify confidence and preserve source link.
- 05 Publish Show record with limits, date, and correction path.
Ingest
Plain-language: Epieme records where each source came from and when it was retrieved. Technical detail: retrieval logs should include URL, timestamp, parser version, status code, checksum, and source owner.
Normalize
Plain-language: Epieme makes records comparable without changing what the source says. Technical detail: normalized fields should preserve raw values and transformation notes.
Publish
Plain-language: the published record shows the source, date, confidence tier, and correction link. Technical detail: publication should be versioned so prior displays can be reproduced.
"A pipeline stage that cannot be audited is not a methodology stage yet."
Epieme should never ask readers to trust a conclusion without showing whether it is directly verified, derived from joined records, or still unresolved.
Verified incident
A record linked to a primary public source with matching facility, date or date range, jurisdiction, and document owner.
Credentialing red flag
Placeholder: define the exact source categories before using this term in product copy.
Human review reliability
Placeholder: inter-rater reliability has not been published. Target: publish Cohen's kappa or equivalent after the first reviewed corpus.
No rankings
Epieme does not score or rank hospitals. It surfaces records, source links, confidence tiers, and known limitations.
Validation checks planned for each record
- Source URL resolves and is archived where lawful.
- Source owner matches the jurisdiction and record type.
- Extracted dates can be traced to the raw document.
- Classifier outputs retain a confidence tier and version.
- Corrections retain prior display and disposition.
This example is intentionally marked as a placeholder until it can be connected to a real public record, source URL, and record ID. Do not replace it with invented case data.
Placeholder record
State adverse-event report, source pending
- Jurisdiction
- Placeholder: state
- Facility
- Placeholder: facility name
- Incident type
- Placeholder: category
- Confidence
- Unverified
- Source link: should open the official page, not a screenshot or scraped copy.
- Extracted fields: should show the raw value, normalized value, and parser version.
- Limits: should state what cannot be inferred from the record.
- Correction: should prefill the record ID and section anchor.
"A record is not complete until a reader can travel back to the source that created it."
Source-linked
A record includes a direct path to the public source used for the claim.
Public record
A record lawfully available from a public agency, court, board, legislature, or public filing system.
Derived claim
A claim produced by joining two or more records. It must show the join logic.
Protected health information
Individually identifiable health information protected by HIPAA or state privacy law. Epieme will not publish raw PHI.
FOIA or public-records request
A request to a public body for records under federal or state access laws.
Model card
A classifier disclosure that lists inputs, training data, evaluation, failure modes, and retraining date.
- State variance: FOIA laws, adverse-event definitions, disciplinary reporting, and publication practices differ by state.
- Underreporting: voluntary systems can miss events. Epieme will not present absence of records as absence of risk.
- Adjacent data: malpractice payouts, peer review, clinical outcomes, and sealed settlements are outside the current perimeter unless a public source is documented.
- U.S.-only: international expansion is not part of v0.9. If added, it should be documented under a future major version.
"Naming the gap is safer than letting a reader infer coverage that does not exist."
Placeholder: publish the full classifier list before using any automated labels in production. Each classifier should receive a model card and version history.
Where automation may be used
Topic labeling, source deduplication, field extraction, and anomaly flags.
Where humans review
Corrections, disputed records, source changes, sensitive categories, and methodology updates.
What is never automated
Final correction disposition, funding disclosure, takedown decisions, and editorial policy changes.
Model card placeholder
Classifier name, owner, model type, inputs, training set, evaluation set, measured errors, known failure modes, human review threshold, last retrained date, and rollback path.
HIPAA posture
Epieme works with public records. It will not publish raw PHI, private medical records, or identifiers that are not already lawfully public and necessary for the record.
What Epieme will not publish
Raw PHI, private patient narratives without permission, sealed records, peer-review protected material, or content obtained outside lawful access channels.
Subject access
Providers or facilities disputing a record can request review. The correction path should preserve the original source and publish the disposition.
Legal pages
Privacy, terms, data use, acceptable use, and DMCA pages should be linked here once finalized. Current placeholder: Privacy.
"Public does not mean publish without judgment."
Correction commitment
Epieme targets a first response within 5 business days. A final disposition should state whether the record was corrected, annotated, removed, or left unchanged.
Report an errorPublic corrections log
Placeholder: publish a dated corrections feed with record ID, summary, change type, and disposition.
Fixed mistake example
Placeholder: add the first real corrected error after launch. Do not fabricate one.
Takedown policy
Placeholder: document unlawful, sealed, misattributed, or privacy-sensitive takedown criteria.
"A correction is a methodology artifact, not a customer-support ticket."
Funding and conflicts need to be visible before procurement, reporters, or public agencies ask for them.
Funding disclosure
Placeholder: disclose Spark Accelerator support, grants, contracts, customer revenue, and exact update date.
Funder firewall
Hospitals, vendors, funders, and advertisers cannot pay to change methodology, suppress records, alter rankings, or edit source-linked displays.
Conflicts of interest
Placeholder: list any family, advisory, research, hospital, legal, or institutional relationships relevant to coverage.
Advertising policy
Epieme should not sell hospital advertising against public patient-safety listings.
Current methodology owner
Samson Cournane. Placeholder: add full founder bio, Johns Hopkins affiliation, ARCADE Lab role, LinkedIn, and any conflict disclosures after verification.
External review
Placeholder: no independent methodology audit is published yet. Target date and reviewer should be listed before launch.
Advisory board
Placeholder: list named advisors with permission, photos, bios, expertise, and conflicts. Do not imply an advisory board before it exists.
"A one-person company can be credible only when accountability is explicit."
| Surface | Primary purpose | Source transparency | 50-state method pages | Correction workflow |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Epieme | Source-linked patient-safety public records | Required on every record | Planned, placeholder | Public SLA, placeholder log |
| CMS Care Compare | Federal quality and comparison information | Federal methodology documents | Not Epieme's claim to assess | Source-specific |
| Leapfrog | Hospital safety grades and survey-based measures | Published methodology | Not Epieme's claim to assess | Source-specific |
| ProPublica patient-safety work | Journalistic investigations and datasets | Project-specific | Not Epieme's claim to assess | Editorial corrections |
Cite this page
Epieme. "Epieme methodology: sources, verification, limits." Version 0.9 public draft. Last modified May 26, 2026. https://epieme.org/how-it-works.html
Citation exports
Placeholder: BibTeX, RIS, and Zotero-ready citation files should be generated from the same metadata as this page.
Open data
Placeholder: define CC-BY slices, commercial API terms, and researcher access before publishing exports.
Code release
Placeholder: link ingestion code or publish a target date for reproducible source parsers.
PDF version
Placeholder: generated PDF should come from this page content, not a hand-maintained document.
Versioning and changelog
Placeholder: maintain permanent links to methodology versions, date, owner, and diff summary.
External skeptic review
Placeholder: name reviewer, publish write-up, and keep prior review dates.
Source and state pages
Placeholder: launch priority sources and the first state methodology set.
Sunset and preservation
Placeholder: document archive partner, export format, and data release if Epieme shuts down.
Does Epieme claim complete national coverage?
No. Coverage is source-specific, state-specific, and versioned. Unknown coverage is labeled as unknown or planned.
Does Epieme score or rank hospitals?
No. Epieme surfaces public records, source links, confidence tiers, and known limitations.
Does Epieme publish protected health information?
No. Epieme will not publish raw PHI or private medical records.
Where is AI used?
Placeholder: classification and extraction tools must be documented with model cards before production use.
How are errors corrected?
Report a record or section error. Epieme targets first response within 5 business days and will publish dispositions.
Can a hospital pay to change a listing?
No. Payments, contracts, donations, or partnerships cannot alter source-linked records or methodology decisions.
Can researchers use Epieme data?
Placeholder: public slices, commercial API terms, and data-sharing agreements need final license language.
Who owns this methodology?
Current owner: Samson Cournane. External review board is a placeholder until named reviewers are confirmed.
Placeholder: replace contact aliases with monitored inboxes and response windows before launch. Press contact should include a phone number or same-day escalation path.