Epic Bridges and Cloverleaf

[John Bonnie]

Looking for input as to how these two products work together.  Thanks in advance for your input.

Topic

[James Cobane]

Hi John,

Bridges is essentially Epic’s interface application.  Bridges is where you configure and maintain the interfaces to and from Epic.  Configuration of interfaces in Epic Bridges is done through the use of ‘Profile Variables’ which control how the interfaces behave.  You  also configure the communications set-up (i.e. IP, ports, etc.) for the various interfaces within Bridges.  Bridges is in no way an interface engine; you don’t really have much control over formatting of transactions within Bridges.  Cloverleaf will still do all the heavy lifting and communicate to Epic via Bridges.

Some upper level management folks tend to make the erroneous assumption that with Epic Bridges you don’t need an interface engine.  But, that is totally incorrect, and your engine will play an even more important role.

Hope that helps.

Jim Cobane

Henry Ford Health

[Lawrence Williams]

We have been on Epic now for a few years and to answer your question of how well do they work together, very well 😉

Epic Bridges certainly does not take the place of an interface engine, but it does complement Cloverleaf and even provides some nice features that are…..well have always been…. lacking in Cloverleaf, like a very nice user friendly way of viewing and editing the HL7 messages.

We also have several point-to-point interfaces, straight from Epic Bridges to the ancillary system…. typically these are Device interfaces (i.e.  glucometers and such).

Epic’s interface support (their “EDI” group) is fantastic !   I can send an email directly to one person and get a response in minutes, or I can always pick up the phone and call their main support and they will route me to someone immeditately.    I don’t have to go through the aggrevation of dealing with a new person each time and explaining who we are and what we have……

[Author]

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