As we head into the HIMSS21 Annual Conference next week, the news is already starting to come out. Healthcare IT News shared that Epic would be rolling out a new site EpicShare at HIMSS21. Well, the EpicShare site is now live and available for people to peruse.
EpicShare is being billed as “a place for healthcare executives to share IT experiences and gain insights on using Epic to improve their organizations.” When I first saw the news, I thought that it was going to be more of an online user forum somewhat similar to the Accelerate platform that HIMSS just rolled out, but I guess Epic kind of already has that with Epic UserWeb. Instead, EpicShare looks much less like a forum and much more like an Epic news site that Epic can use and to highlight some of their features and functions to users and from users and to market their product and services.
I predict that the most popular part of the site is going to be “Hey Judy” where Epic Founder, Judy Faulkner, is going to share “Thoughts and Stories.” She already has a fun story about their Epic overview presentation including Beatles songs and the CIOs reaction to those songs. Plus, she’s started going over the 10 Commandments and 10 Principles by sharing Epic Commandment #1: Don’t Go Public. Back in 2014, we shared Epic’s 13 principles. Interesting to see them evolve to 10 commandments and 10 principles.
While I think we’ll all be watching for what Judy shares about Epic, they do also have a space for curated Perspectives from healthcare executives, Tips & Trisks, and a place for Epic users to Share & Learn. I expect Epic will have to curate a lot of these stories to start even though two sections include forms to submit stories, tips, and tricks. In fact, it would be smart of Judy to encourage Epic employees to push their customers to take part. I’ve often found that many EHR users don’t realize what they’re doing is worth highlighting. A little nudge can help them realize what they’ve really accomplished so they’re willing to share.
EpicShare also includes a “News Watch” section where they highlight articles published in the various health IT trade press. It will be interesting to see which articles they share in this section. Unfortunately, they haven’t included any of our Epic EHR articles yet, but the site just launched so we’ll give them time.
I find this a really interesting launch for Epic. Because Epic has been so closed in the past, any sort of information about them and their culture was eaten up by users and the industry. Given all their success in the marketplace, it makes sense for them to share more of what they have accomplished.
Plus, it’s a real problem that many Epic users don’t know what’s possible with the Epic software. An Epic hospital might have done something really amazing in San Francisco that Epic users in Cleveland don’t know about. Sharing those successes and even failures (if they’re brave enough to share) can help Epic users across the world.
In Judy Faulkner’s talk with Cleveland Clinic, she shared how many of the challenges healthcare organizations face have to do with them not implementing or using features that already exist in Epic. Knowing that a feature is available in Epic and how it can be implemented in a healthcare organization effectively is likely a problem that Judy and Epic would like to solve or at least improve with EpicShare.
I love these efforts for Epic to be more open and to share the good they’re doing in the world along with connecting their users to best practice stories. It also aligns with the Epic Health Research Network efforts to share their work with the wider community, which we covered previously. I think EpicShare will do a lot to share the culture of Epic and its users.
