Don't tell Europeans/Scandinavians about that. In Finland there is now massive Epic rollout in the capital region (costwise it looks like $1bn or more) and most likely also huge installation coming up In Central Finland (Its either Epic or Cerner).
Samething in Norway, central Norweigian health district chose epic.
Oh and almost forgot capital area in Denmark. Huge epic installation.
It's garbage because the interface sucks. It looks like it was designed in 1998, and is full of clunky non sequiturs like, "You cannot proceed. Proceed anyway?" There are untold hours and dollars spent on training users because of it.
It's garbage on the backend because the update process is ridiculously manual. Every minor change sends out a ticket with incredibly detailed instructions, e.g. to update a single element somewhere. The role of the analyst is essentially to execute a script, by hand. Not only is this more costly and slower, it's more error prone. But it creates an ecosystem of these Epic-trained and -approved technicians which helps lock in customers and ensures another steady stream of income to epic.
It's a billing system with clinical related functionality tacked on. It's pretty frustrating to use from the perspective of a "boots on the ground" user.
In 2005, when I started working there, the Epic codebase was MUMPS and Visual Basic 6, which left mainstream support before I was even allowed to touch it. There was no migration plan for expiration of extended support in 2008.
As for the MUMPS code, there was a node size limitation for the code. Which included variable names and comments. So each code segment (identified by inscrutable five-letter (or less) names like "^ZHMRG") was jam-packed as tightly as possible with one-letter variable names and zero comments. Basically unmaintainable, but I bet they're still using it.
Garbage software. I left in 2007.
They like to hire straight out of universities. It was the second job for me, so I didn't really know to jump ship earlier.
kakoni|6 years ago
Samething in Norway, central Norweigian health district chose epic.
Oh and almost forgot capital area in Denmark. Huge epic installation.
ShirtlessRod|6 years ago
bagacrap|6 years ago
It's garbage on the backend because the update process is ridiculously manual. Every minor change sends out a ticket with incredibly detailed instructions, e.g. to update a single element somewhere. The role of the analyst is essentially to execute a script, by hand. Not only is this more costly and slower, it's more error prone. But it creates an ecosystem of these Epic-trained and -approved technicians which helps lock in customers and ensures another steady stream of income to epic.
JshWright|6 years ago
logfromblammo|6 years ago
As for the MUMPS code, there was a node size limitation for the code. Which included variable names and comments. So each code segment (identified by inscrutable five-letter (or less) names like "^ZHMRG") was jam-packed as tightly as possible with one-letter variable names and zero comments. Basically unmaintainable, but I bet they're still using it.
Garbage software. I left in 2007.
They like to hire straight out of universities. It was the second job for me, so I didn't really know to jump ship earlier.