A Go Live of EPIC Proportions

In exactly two weeks my office will “GO LIVE” with Epic EHR (Electronic Health Record) 2015.

In exactly two weeks my office will “GO LIVE” with Epic EHR (Electronic Health Record) 2015. This is a much anticipated systemwide move from our present EHR software and has been heralded with a circus analogy, a horde of analysts and other HIT experts, inconceivable amounts of money, two years of planning and general dis-ease among the doctors who are about to experience the change (see what I did there?). We are going live before the rest of our statewide system and I give credit to my associate, Dr. Diana Irvin, for not killing me when she learned that we would be one of the two pilot offices. Of course there is still time for her to rethink that…

We begin “for real” training this morning, the first of three sessions. I participated in pilot training three weeks ago. This was poorly done and now worries me as to how today will go. For a software product that has been around for so long, it was astonishing to me that the pilot was so badly organized. Epic disavowed any responsibility for that in the voice of its representative at our last GLRA (Go Live Readiness Assessment) meeting. Fortunately I have every confidence in our Medsys consultant and Chief Medical Officer (CMO) to make the training more meaningful and efficient for physicians. They have impressed me over the last two years by having an understanding of how to make things work better for the doctors in matters of our developing EHR.

As a Physician Champion for this effort, the most meaningful training I’ve experienced occurred last week when I sat down with three IT analysts and went through a couple of scenarios specific to my workflow. After almost a year of Epic video examples I could finally see the power of the software. It’s clear that it needs a lot of personalization to make it hum, but I caught a glimpse of possibility. As a geek that makes me excited. As a physician, I don’t know. How much will this tool speed up my ability to see patients while amassing helpful data and improve patient care? Will I finally get home before 7 pm every night I work? My colleagues just want to take care of patients. They are not interested in software and most of them are not digital natives. How much can I help my associates in my role as Physician Champion, to speed up the tool? We’ll see.

I hope the circus analogy doesn’t make clowns of us all.

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