Dr. Who, that's not true in all cases. If you can heal whatever ailment I come in for, in a reasonable time, and at a reasonable price, then I won't have much to say about how you decorate your daughter's room. It would be inappropriate.
If you can't heal me for years (particularly when some of these ailments you used to heal in a matter of days, if the price is very high, and if government policies are starting to get into the mix that are likely to thwart my ability to find other doctors who can do what you used to do for me, then I can start to question your lifestyle a bit. Especially if you were to claim to me that having a nice room for your daughter was somehow critical to your ability to provide me with what you falsely claim to be the higher standard of care that you've grown so comfortable with.
Doctor Who - 8 years ago
It is none of our business. If one of my patients were to visit me home and tell me that I shouldn't spend money on my daughter's room, I would tell him exactly same. I believe we pay a lot of money to Epic/Cerner but we spend 10 times more on our doctors (including yours truly) and administrator salaries. We earn a lot more compared to national household income and we never say that patients/insurance/taxpayers are footing the bill for our large mansions and wants.
People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
I was glad to read Kenny's point, although I'll slightly disagree with him in that I feel the cost of campus (or other expenses) for Epic or Cerner isn't an entirely separate issue from the dropping service/indifference he mentions. There is a connection in my opinion insofar as any company has choices to make on how they manage their money, particularly if they are profitable and how they're reinvesting those profits back into the business. When we see major quality problems budding with Epic and a less satisfactory maintenance relationship, but also see these enormous and ornate buildings, it raises big questions about whether they are managing their money appropriately.
Whatever the case, the money could have been invested in the product. I go to Epic maybe once a year for UGM, or some training. The campus is nice, but that's just once a year. I use the product every day. The product is what impacts my day-to-day, and more significantly it's what impacts the patient care we try to provide. Epic has gotten all up in our business about things we should be doing. It's okay for us to have an opinion on certain major sources of spending. After all, we're the ones that gave them the money.
I think the survey results are telling in that there's not much outright support for the campuses. I also think that block of people who are Indifferent will feel more Negative as their experience sours with either company. Many of them might not work with either company, who knows? I just don't see that there's real support for these campuses outside of the actual companies that own the campuses.
Kenny - 8 years ago
The expense of campuses really isn't the issue. It's that service levels have noticeably declined and their is indifference to client's actual needs and business cases.
Those responsible for delivering business solutions are beyond frustrated with constant cost cutting and do more with less. Competent staff are an operational expense, become dispensable. With many demands and limited options, including the direction to just 'bring in a consultant', typically clueless consultants there for a prescribed number of hours with no stake in the failure or success, fancy digs in a super casual environment exacerbates the stress back at the office.
T - 8 years ago
No comparison's comment confuses me. I thought this was about expense, which is considerably more comparable than appearance.
What I'm seeing in your comment is that you're OK with spending billions on buildings, but only if they look like unpleasant places to be.
That strikes me as a really strange position to take.
No comparison - 8 years ago
Have you guys even seen Cerner's campuses? They are nowhere near as over-the-top as Epic's. No-nonsense cubicle farms and data centers surrounded by seas of asphalt. Several look like something that came out of Office Space, not a Dr. Seuss book.
Seems to me this is a customer problem not an Epic problem. The customers must 'like' paying for all the glitz because I do not think Epic has another source of income.
Here's an idea: The next time Epic (or Cern for that matter) start a new building, all the customers get together and call a 'strike' and withhold paying Epic support fees unless Epic cuts the budget for the building project in half. Of course this tactic will not work unless at least half of the clients sign on, and the chances of that are ??? So stop complaining!
mixed feelings - 8 years ago
Being in Madison, they need to attract development talent. I see the benefit there. If you are competing against Silicon Valley or the East Coast, you need to find some attractive elements. The cost of living is another positive compared to those locations, but this is another easy way to make sure you're not getting "outgunned in the race for talent.
As someone who was in IS, I agree with all the points above. It isn't very important to you after a few months. My favorites years there were when I was at the old Tokay building - a nice place, but never extravagant. If anything, the nice facilities create a sense of entitlement in the staff that I saw build over my time there - 2007-2012.
The auditoriums are kind of over the top. I recall Judy said that she felt it was necessary to keep UGM going, which she felt was a key to the corporate culture. It always seemed to me that there was another way to do that without spending so much on that new auditorium.
Epic's always had a very single minded focus; at least better than most vendors. At its best, this means they don't get particularly concerned with the fad of the day (e.g. they don't do acquisitions, etc.).
However, At its worst, I think it leads to tone-deafness. I think the facilities fall into this bucket unfortunately.
Cosmos - 8 years ago
MEDITECH does the same thing on a smaller scale with buildings around the Boston area. Their new flagship building in Foxboro, MA features a conference center which, despite it's design flaws, saves the company money by allowing them to host customer events onsite instead of at expensive hotels. To me, that's good business sense and not extravagance.
FrugalAnimal - 8 years ago
While gov't is spouting off about the rising cost of HC, and my Madison taxi driver is giving me the roundabout tour of Madison on the way to my flight ("how wonderful Epic is for this city"), after a trip to Madison for 1.5 day of training to get "certified" (a 4 hour class when it's all boiled down without breaks and youtube vids) paid for by my safety-net hospital...all I could think was "hmmmm...I wonder why HC costs are rising"). As a hospital employed or contracted worker in more than a dozen hospitals I've worked in basements with rodents, dripping water, leaking sewers, fleas, bathrooms from 1950s, bad HVAC... never in palatial quarters like Epic. Yet hospitals will hand $ over blindly to Epic...what gives?! To me, it's just a big ole waste of $, but some people get off on decorations, lights, astronomical murals and tunnels...whatever. Given all the problems we've had with Epic, I think they need to stop building and decorating and focus on software stability and usability.
also-ex-epic - 8 years ago
re: ex-epic afficonado
Spot on. As an IS person with four customers and out of the office every week, the only day I came to Verona was on Friday to run around like an idiot attending team meetings that I was too burnt out to care about. While "every employee has an office" sounds nice...fact of the matter is I was questioning if I even needed an apartment in Madison, let alone an office in Verona.
James M Curley - 8 years ago
They are investing in real estate, not new or enhanced HIT products. They are saying loudly that trying to innovate in HIT is either more risky or has less payback or both than buildings that they can rent out or sell.
AlmostAdjusted - 8 years ago
Everyone I know enjoys working at an attractive office/workplace. It instills a bit of pride in going to work there. Not all health systems build fancy office buildings, but I have seen some very elegant hospitals with the sole intent to be visually appealing to it's patients. The cost of that architecture is also expensive. It is also understood that some of the cost is often underwritten by several public/private benefactors. Still, I don't hear much complaint about the cost of those buildings when it comes to the cost of healthcare.
B - 8 years ago
"Non-profit", please.
Hermanator - 8 years ago
We're competing for talent. Firms like Cerner, Epic & Athena that exclusively serve healthcare need to make the work environment attractive like other innovative tech companies.
ex-epic afficonado - 8 years ago
Having worked at Epic in the past I can say the glitzy campus really doesn't do much for employees. It may look great but after the first 6 weeks all I ever saw was the inside airplanes and conference rooms. Most of my colleagues (regardless) worked too many hours to care about slides, ride on bananas, or extravagant childish themes. I question whether I even needed a dedicated office since I was somewhere else more than I was there. The money spent on buildings (esp. single use auditoriums) could have been spent on development or hiring more staff to serve customers
Dr. Who, that's not true in all cases. If you can heal whatever ailment I come in for, in a reasonable time, and at a reasonable price, then I won't have much to say about how you decorate your daughter's room. It would be inappropriate.
If you can't heal me for years (particularly when some of these ailments you used to heal in a matter of days, if the price is very high, and if government policies are starting to get into the mix that are likely to thwart my ability to find other doctors who can do what you used to do for me, then I can start to question your lifestyle a bit. Especially if you were to claim to me that having a nice room for your daughter was somehow critical to your ability to provide me with what you falsely claim to be the higher standard of care that you've grown so comfortable with.
It is none of our business. If one of my patients were to visit me home and tell me that I shouldn't spend money on my daughter's room, I would tell him exactly same. I believe we pay a lot of money to Epic/Cerner but we spend 10 times more on our doctors (including yours truly) and administrator salaries. We earn a lot more compared to national household income and we never say that patients/insurance/taxpayers are footing the bill for our large mansions and wants.
People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
I was glad to read Kenny's point, although I'll slightly disagree with him in that I feel the cost of campus (or other expenses) for Epic or Cerner isn't an entirely separate issue from the dropping service/indifference he mentions. There is a connection in my opinion insofar as any company has choices to make on how they manage their money, particularly if they are profitable and how they're reinvesting those profits back into the business. When we see major quality problems budding with Epic and a less satisfactory maintenance relationship, but also see these enormous and ornate buildings, it raises big questions about whether they are managing their money appropriately.
Whatever the case, the money could have been invested in the product. I go to Epic maybe once a year for UGM, or some training. The campus is nice, but that's just once a year. I use the product every day. The product is what impacts my day-to-day, and more significantly it's what impacts the patient care we try to provide. Epic has gotten all up in our business about things we should be doing. It's okay for us to have an opinion on certain major sources of spending. After all, we're the ones that gave them the money.
I think the survey results are telling in that there's not much outright support for the campuses. I also think that block of people who are Indifferent will feel more Negative as their experience sours with either company. Many of them might not work with either company, who knows? I just don't see that there's real support for these campuses outside of the actual companies that own the campuses.
The expense of campuses really isn't the issue. It's that service levels have noticeably declined and their is indifference to client's actual needs and business cases.
Those responsible for delivering business solutions are beyond frustrated with constant cost cutting and do more with less. Competent staff are an operational expense, become dispensable. With many demands and limited options, including the direction to just 'bring in a consultant', typically clueless consultants there for a prescribed number of hours with no stake in the failure or success, fancy digs in a super casual environment exacerbates the stress back at the office.
No comparison's comment confuses me. I thought this was about expense, which is considerably more comparable than appearance.
What I'm seeing in your comment is that you're OK with spending billions on buildings, but only if they look like unpleasant places to be.
That strikes me as a really strange position to take.
Have you guys even seen Cerner's campuses? They are nowhere near as over-the-top as Epic's. No-nonsense cubicle farms and data centers surrounded by seas of asphalt. Several look like something that came out of Office Space, not a Dr. Seuss book.
Seems to me this is a customer problem not an Epic problem. The customers must 'like' paying for all the glitz because I do not think Epic has another source of income.
Here's an idea: The next time Epic (or Cern for that matter) start a new building, all the customers get together and call a 'strike' and withhold paying Epic support fees unless Epic cuts the budget for the building project in half. Of course this tactic will not work unless at least half of the clients sign on, and the chances of that are ??? So stop complaining!
Being in Madison, they need to attract development talent. I see the benefit there. If you are competing against Silicon Valley or the East Coast, you need to find some attractive elements. The cost of living is another positive compared to those locations, but this is another easy way to make sure you're not getting "outgunned in the race for talent.
As someone who was in IS, I agree with all the points above. It isn't very important to you after a few months. My favorites years there were when I was at the old Tokay building - a nice place, but never extravagant. If anything, the nice facilities create a sense of entitlement in the staff that I saw build over my time there - 2007-2012.
The auditoriums are kind of over the top. I recall Judy said that she felt it was necessary to keep UGM going, which she felt was a key to the corporate culture. It always seemed to me that there was another way to do that without spending so much on that new auditorium.
Epic's always had a very single minded focus; at least better than most vendors. At its best, this means they don't get particularly concerned with the fad of the day (e.g. they don't do acquisitions, etc.).
However, At its worst, I think it leads to tone-deafness. I think the facilities fall into this bucket unfortunately.
MEDITECH does the same thing on a smaller scale with buildings around the Boston area. Their new flagship building in Foxboro, MA features a conference center which, despite it's design flaws, saves the company money by allowing them to host customer events onsite instead of at expensive hotels. To me, that's good business sense and not extravagance.
While gov't is spouting off about the rising cost of HC, and my Madison taxi driver is giving me the roundabout tour of Madison on the way to my flight ("how wonderful Epic is for this city"), after a trip to Madison for 1.5 day of training to get "certified" (a 4 hour class when it's all boiled down without breaks and youtube vids) paid for by my safety-net hospital...all I could think was "hmmmm...I wonder why HC costs are rising"). As a hospital employed or contracted worker in more than a dozen hospitals I've worked in basements with rodents, dripping water, leaking sewers, fleas, bathrooms from 1950s, bad HVAC... never in palatial quarters like Epic. Yet hospitals will hand $ over blindly to Epic...what gives?! To me, it's just a big ole waste of $, but some people get off on decorations, lights, astronomical murals and tunnels...whatever. Given all the problems we've had with Epic, I think they need to stop building and decorating and focus on software stability and usability.
re: ex-epic afficonado
Spot on. As an IS person with four customers and out of the office every week, the only day I came to Verona was on Friday to run around like an idiot attending team meetings that I was too burnt out to care about. While "every employee has an office" sounds nice...fact of the matter is I was questioning if I even needed an apartment in Madison, let alone an office in Verona.
They are investing in real estate, not new or enhanced HIT products. They are saying loudly that trying to innovate in HIT is either more risky or has less payback or both than buildings that they can rent out or sell.
Everyone I know enjoys working at an attractive office/workplace. It instills a bit of pride in going to work there. Not all health systems build fancy office buildings, but I have seen some very elegant hospitals with the sole intent to be visually appealing to it's patients. The cost of that architecture is also expensive. It is also understood that some of the cost is often underwritten by several public/private benefactors. Still, I don't hear much complaint about the cost of those buildings when it comes to the cost of healthcare.
"Non-profit", please.
We're competing for talent. Firms like Cerner, Epic & Athena that exclusively serve healthcare need to make the work environment attractive like other innovative tech companies.
Having worked at Epic in the past I can say the glitzy campus really doesn't do much for employees. It may look great but after the first 6 weeks all I ever saw was the inside airplanes and conference rooms. Most of my colleagues (regardless) worked too many hours to care about slides, ride on bananas, or extravagant childish themes. I question whether I even needed a dedicated office since I was somewhere else more than I was there. The money spent on buildings (esp. single use auditoriums) could have been spent on development or hiring more staff to serve customers