Why Do People Dislike Epic So Much? Let Me Count The Ways

Man oh man, Epic is burning up the track. As my colleague John Lynn noted in a recent post, there are tons of reasons why it’s developed a near monopoly in some sectors, especially with large hospitals.

...It can’t help that many users dislike the Epic interface and generally find the product to be a PITA to use.  That doesn’t exactly generate good will. The capper, really, may be the way Epic is handling its clout. CEO Judith Faulkner seems to be taking on an imperial attitude, doubtless because her company controls so many installations that it practically controls aspects of the entire US health reform process.

If you think that’s scary, consider the following. About six years ago, Geisinger Health System spent $35 million on an Epic Systems install. Not only after, during a pilot test of the software, the hospital’s psychiatric unit started to get wildly inconsistent and inappropriate medication orders. Apparently, the problem was an incompatibility between a commonly-used pharmacy database in place at Geisinger and the Epic system. OK, just about any system can fail, and unfortunately, drug dosage problems are one of the many possible points of failure. That’s not what frightens me.

What had me reeling was a quote from a Business Week article written not long after the Geisinger debacle. When questioned, Faulkner didn’t apologize: she said, in essence, that it was Geisinger that was at fault for having the temerity to try and integrate Epic technology with existing systems. “It doesn’t work when you mix and match vendors,” Faulker told the magazine. “It has to be one system, or it can be dangerous for patients.”...