An Epic Adventure: Part Whatever
OK, so maybe this part was my fault. I probably would be a bit better at this Epic thing if I did it more frequently than once every two months. Guilty. The thing is, though, that every little thing Epic asks me to do has either already been done on paper, would go faster if it was done on paper, or both.
It takes two discreet steps to enter the software program, even if you are in a CCF institution and working on a CCF computer; it’s even more complex and takes three steps from the comfort of your own computer. I get the security thing; really, I do. I tried it both ways and failed. Epic failure. Again. So once again I had to call in the cavalry in the guise of the physician support team just to get into the system, finally achieving this milestone event after 3 attempts and a total of 100 minutes of work.
Success, right? I’m in. Nothing to do now but clean up my charts, sign this, attest to that, and away I go. Sure…about that. In the interim between my visits there’d been an upgrade, ostensibly to make using Epic easier. Another 45 minutes of frustration ended up in another phone call and a personal visit by one of the support staff to guide me on my adventure. Kinda like being roped to a mountain guide when you really have no business climbing that particular mountain, except on the mountain you chose to be there.
You’re probably wondering why there was such a big interval between my visits to the “mountain”, and why I chose to continue my Epic adventure now. Both have rather simple answers. I hate everything about this process and this program; I feel oppressed, literally, forced to use a bloated, inefficient bureaucratic load of “make-work” that adds nothing but time and effort to my day, and so I naturally avoid it for as long as possible. How long? Well, long enough this time that the reason I found myself roped to my guide was the Registered Letter informing me that I’d ignored all of the notifications that I was delinquent in my charting and had therefor “voluntarily resigned” my staff position. Another 30 minutes with my guide and my slate was clean.
How, you might ask, had I possibly allowed myself to “voluntarily resign”? I’ve been a doc for some 25 years; I know the medical staff rules. I’ve been signing charts forever. My address, fax number, and email are all unchanged, and I’ve never missed a notification from the hospital before. Despite my obvious, transparent disgust with Epic and everything it imposes on me, it doesn’t make any sense to let that jeopardize my ability to do surgery at this institution by petulantly ignoring my medical staff requirements. How did this happen?
Easy. All of the notifications were messages only available when you log into Epic.
Tags: ccf, cleveland clinic, ehr, electronic, electronic health records, electronic medical records, emr, epic
This entry was posted on Friday, October 26th, 2012 at 6:32 pm and is filed under Health Care, Healthcare Economics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.