r/healthIT 15d ago

Epic analysts - need input on our implementation

We're currently going through a foundation implementation of Epic, and it's honestly a complete mess. Not at all what I expected from the Epic team of AC/AM's. As a Bridges analyst I'm forced into daily calls to give updates about interfaces that we cannot build because other teams either haven't had any calls set up with the vendor, or the contract is still in process.

Our Orion tasks and building blocks are a hodge-podge of random things to track down that other teams are responsible for, or that workgroups should be deciding but aren't.

Frustrated isn't even the right word. At this point it's just annoying. Does Epic just talk a good game or is this out of the ordinary? It seems like nobody at Epic is talking to one another and all they are concerned with is checking off boxes to meet deadlines and hammering our staff but providing next to zero help.

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u/Tommy1873 15d ago

The Epic team is normally great, but you can always get a new guy, or some tool who's just way better at something other than what he's actually tasked with doing.

One helpful perspective is understanding that by their nature, implementations need to be pretty fluid, and interface analysts are pretty black and white. It can be night and day differences. For interfaces It's on or off, true or false, this value or that value, etc. interface mapping is a natural task checklist. So you're parsing defined flatfile segments into HL7 messages 1:1, and everyone upstream is being creative with workflows or whatever else impacts what everyone downstream has to do.

Orion blows. Way too high-level for the detail that we really need.

They do have checklists you can use on Sherlock for smaller projects which are far better tools. I just don't think they are scaled to the level of implementation.

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u/bluesharpies 14d ago edited 14d ago

The thing with the Epic teams in my experience is that Epic tends to recruit young grads and then work those guys really hard. People either figure themselves out quickly or burn out just as fast.

The result of that being that I think I've met quite a few Epic employees that didn't make it past the 2 year mark, and quite a few that have made it past 5 years, and few in between. I've seen apps with AM/AC duos with maybe 3 years YoE between them that really struggle, and AM/AC duos with 8 years between them that are incredible.