Ex-Epic captures the reality! There are many great opportunities to improve patient care if Epic would be a better partner, to their customers and to their peer organizations.
Clarence - 6 years ago
I bet I can guess from which state the majority of the "No" votes are coming from.
Ex-Epic - 6 years ago
I was at Epic for a few years. The company makes great products, does its best to provide top-of-the-line services, and at least tries to be visionary and evolve. However, Epic is insular in more ways than one, and imo this is what stifles innovation, especially when compared to the big Silicon Valley firms.
Example I: No marketing, blogging, or PR team. Customers get one chance per year to preview what's coming next, and the rest of the industry is kept in the dark. With the company being so big now, it's difficult enough to communicate news to staff at 15k employee all-hands meetings with a few staffers, much less the entire HIT industry.
Example 2: Strict no acquisition policy. Epic just does not care what other companies/people are making. In the valley, you have teams of talented engineer at Google, FB, etc. working on side projects that may eventually gain a user base and change the world. They get some angel money from their former managers, then some more funding from big tech backed VCs (e.g. Google Venture), and everyone wins. (There's the consumer data monopolization debate - but that's for another day)
Epic's stance? ...Whatever - we only care about the core EHR product. An antiquated backend tech stack doesn't help either.
I can think of other ways that Epic's unique culture and values suppress innovation. The company does a great job on improving the core product and servicing their customers; it just expresses little interest in enabling other technology players in the space to innovate alongside it.
Luckily, there are quite a few growing companies in Madison (many with ex-Epic folks) that are trying to build this HIT environment. As the highly blue seat of a mostly red state, Madison is no stranger to protests and marches. The Fairview CEO might just uncover some paragons of innovation while marching through town.
Hermanator - 6 years ago
It’s about leadership!
An EHR doesn’t inhibit innovation, leadership does. North Mississippi Health historically had been an innovator with TDS7000. Northshore Evanston, Cedars Sinai, Cleveland Clinic, St. Luke’s KC, Piedmont, Thedacare, and many others are using Epic as their EHR and innovative practices continue to lead the industry.
mike - 6 years ago
In process of reviewing an epic community connect installation - services are slow, not flexible to accommodate work flow needs - takes a lot of personnel just to keep it up and running and and the one-person one record is illusory. innovation and integration with other systems is poor
Vic Arnold - 6 years ago
Epic, although not all that different than Cerner, regularly discourages the participation of 3rd parties in its installs, add-ons and other aspects of maintaining the system. I agree that vendors that have put in the time to develop real intellectual property should have the right to protect that IP but this vendor takes that to an extreme that is simply not conducive to long term positive evolution of that IP. This is short sighted and makes Epic vulnerable to the next altruistic person with a PDP-1, ;-), in their living room to develop a better product.
Dev - 6 years ago
While I voted yes, I dont believe Epic to be intentionally impeding innovation. Integration is hard and our industry is risk averse. Organizations spend hundreds of million dollars on Epic and demand stability. One area where Epic gets in its own way is the "bloat" that is needed to implement and support Epic. That kind of skewed focus does not leave much room for the Epic customer to innovate.
It has become clear to me that the EMR is like a plumbing in the house. Super important but it takes a lot more to make the house more livable. Organizations have to prioritize Epic housekeeping and innovation carefully. And not just wait for Epic to implement something 2 years from now and then another 1 year to run that feature through your in house steering committees.
Ex-Epic captures the reality! There are many great opportunities to improve patient care if Epic would be a better partner, to their customers and to their peer organizations.
I bet I can guess from which state the majority of the "No" votes are coming from.
I was at Epic for a few years. The company makes great products, does its best to provide top-of-the-line services, and at least tries to be visionary and evolve. However, Epic is insular in more ways than one, and imo this is what stifles innovation, especially when compared to the big Silicon Valley firms.
Example I: No marketing, blogging, or PR team. Customers get one chance per year to preview what's coming next, and the rest of the industry is kept in the dark. With the company being so big now, it's difficult enough to communicate news to staff at 15k employee all-hands meetings with a few staffers, much less the entire HIT industry.
Example 2: Strict no acquisition policy. Epic just does not care what other companies/people are making. In the valley, you have teams of talented engineer at Google, FB, etc. working on side projects that may eventually gain a user base and change the world. They get some angel money from their former managers, then some more funding from big tech backed VCs (e.g. Google Venture), and everyone wins. (There's the consumer data monopolization debate - but that's for another day)
Epic's stance? ...Whatever - we only care about the core EHR product. An antiquated backend tech stack doesn't help either.
I can think of other ways that Epic's unique culture and values suppress innovation. The company does a great job on improving the core product and servicing their customers; it just expresses little interest in enabling other technology players in the space to innovate alongside it.
Luckily, there are quite a few growing companies in Madison (many with ex-Epic folks) that are trying to build this HIT environment. As the highly blue seat of a mostly red state, Madison is no stranger to protests and marches. The Fairview CEO might just uncover some paragons of innovation while marching through town.
It’s about leadership!
An EHR doesn’t inhibit innovation, leadership does. North Mississippi Health historically had been an innovator with TDS7000. Northshore Evanston, Cedars Sinai, Cleveland Clinic, St. Luke’s KC, Piedmont, Thedacare, and many others are using Epic as their EHR and innovative practices continue to lead the industry.
In process of reviewing an epic community connect installation - services are slow, not flexible to accommodate work flow needs - takes a lot of personnel just to keep it up and running and and the one-person one record is illusory. innovation and integration with other systems is poor
Epic, although not all that different than Cerner, regularly discourages the participation of 3rd parties in its installs, add-ons and other aspects of maintaining the system. I agree that vendors that have put in the time to develop real intellectual property should have the right to protect that IP but this vendor takes that to an extreme that is simply not conducive to long term positive evolution of that IP. This is short sighted and makes Epic vulnerable to the next altruistic person with a PDP-1, ;-), in their living room to develop a better product.
While I voted yes, I dont believe Epic to be intentionally impeding innovation. Integration is hard and our industry is risk averse. Organizations spend hundreds of million dollars on Epic and demand stability. One area where Epic gets in its own way is the "bloat" that is needed to implement and support Epic. That kind of skewed focus does not leave much room for the Epic customer to innovate.
It has become clear to me that the EMR is like a plumbing in the house. Super important but it takes a lot more to make the house more livable. Organizations have to prioritize Epic housekeeping and innovation carefully. And not just wait for Epic to implement something 2 years from now and then another 1 year to run that feature through your in house steering committees.