Epic Interface Staffing

[William Rowley]

Hi folks,

Cooper University Hospital is not only a long time Cloverleaf site but also a new Epic customer and I am looking for feedback from other Epic customers on the staffing requirements for the interface team. We have the recommendations from Epic that base the number of analysts on the complexity of the interfaces and would appreciate hearing from other sites on how accurate the recommendations were for them. Also any general information on staffing or interface development would be welcome.

Thanks!

Topic

[Dennis Pfeifer]

Ok,

I’ll chime in.

We’re an ‘old time’ HCI user (oops .. Cloverleaf.. errr Qdx..).

We’ve also had EPIC for about 8 years, but I still consider ourselves ‘new’ EPIC customers, as we have had a ‘long’ roll out of several products.

Regarding staffing. This is a difficult question for me to answer for you.

You have a decision to make, regarding where the interface ‘customizations’ will be made; on Cloverleaf, or on Bridges (EPIC). If on Bridges, do you contract for customizations with EPIC, or become a ‘certified’ Bridges developer…

I have found the EPIC staff to be very competent and willing to asist.

Some factors in your deicsion are, how may ‘common’ interfaces will you have. e.g. 3 lab systems feeding EPIC .. for which it would make sence to have one EPIC interface and use Cloverleaf to combine them and make modifications to the messages on Cloverleaf.

Because of our environment (three registration, three labs….etc..), we have taken the stance of doing ‘everything’ that we can on Cloverleaf, and having EPIC perform customizations for us only where needed.

In general, I would ‘trust’ EPICs suggestions, as long as they understand your direction, they generally provide good suggestions and estimates.

..

From a support perspective, we have a dedicated EPIC person assigned to our site for interface development and support.

[Vince Angulo]

We currently use Epic for Practice Management (a specialist group, a surgeons group and a dozen general pediatrics practices) registration and professional billing.

Our staffing is two interface programmers.

[Author]

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