Beginnings
EPIC’s roots are deep. Based on the work during the 1970s of Leonard Matheson and his colleagues at Rancho Los Amigos Medical Center, the company was originally founded as ERIC, the Employment and Rehabilitation Institute of California in 1979.
ERIC provided consultation to insurance carriers and functional capacity evaluation services to disabled clients in four locations in Southern California. In 1981, it began providing professional training seminars in occupational rehabilitation and by 1985 was offering three courses:
- Work Capacity Evaluation
- Work Tolerance Screening
- Work Hardening
In Anaheim, California, ERIC established what was at that time the largest free-standing occupational rehabilitation clinic in the United States, the ERIC Rehabilitation Center. The Rehabilitation Center housed the ERIC Professional Residency Program that began in 1986.