Epic's Principles, Part 6

Epic's 13 principles
1. Do not go public.
2. Do not be acquired.
3. Expectations = reality.
4. Keep commitments.
5. Be frugal.
6. Have standards. Don't do deals.
7. Create innovative and helpful products.
8. Have fun with customers.
9. Follow processes. Find root causes. Fix processes.
10. Don't take on debt for operations, no matter how good the deal.
11. Focus on competency. Do not tolerate mediocrity.
12. Teach philosophy and culture.
13. If you disagree, dissent. Once decided, support.

Epic has a slide, so I guess that's got to count for something.

Seriously though, there's a fine line between having fun and frivolously wasting money. UGM walks that line nicely. There are loads of customer-centric events that (to me, at least) never appeared to be gross misuses of money. For customers visiting Verona's campus, Epic follows this principle pretty well.

However, for Epic employees visiting customer sites, fun with customers usually isn't a priority. While visiting Epic staff could suggest going out for a meal during lunch or after work, many Epic customers prefer that visitors' time be devoted more to resolving issues than extra-curricular socializing. Given various legal and ethical issues around vendors paying for clients' meals and vice-versa, the Epic employees that I've dealt with are doing the right thing, even if it's not necessarily following Epic's 8th principle.

Out of 8 principles so far, Epic's actually following 3 ½ of them (and two of those are gimmes).

Epic's Principles, Part 5

 Epic's 13 principles
1. Do not go public.
2. Do not be acquired.
3. Expectations = reality.
4. Keep commitments.
5. Be frugal.
6. Have standards. Don't do deals.
7. Create innovative and helpful products.
8. Have fun with customers.
9. Follow processes. Find root causes. Fix processes.
10. Don't take on debt for operations, no matter how good the deal.
11. Focus on competency. Do not tolerate mediocrity.
12. Teach philosophy and culture.
13. If you disagree, dissent. Once decided, support.

"Create innovative and helpful products." Having recently spoken to some brand new Epic users, I could have some fun with the "helpful" part of this, but since I did drink the kool-aid pretty heavily for my tenure at 1979 Milky Way, I'll abstain from most of the snarkiness.

When used well, I do think Epic is really helpful. As a MyChart user, it's great to be able to see my lab results whenever I feel like it. It's convenient to schedule appointments without having to wait on hold on the phone. As someone who's watched clinicians ooh and aah when they were able to see other providers' notes on their patients, it's obvious that Epic can be helpful.

However...
A couple of things have to align for Epic to be helpful: The customer has to have implemented the software correctly, and Epic's code has to work. It's not a principle, but it's shown at every staff meeting: "Rule #1: Software must work. Period." Judy used to enjoy mentioning how the Cerner CEO thought that was a personal dig directed at him, but I've seen enough Patient Safety Escalations and Care Concerns coming from hastily coded Epic software to say that Epic is guilty of breaking Rule #1, too.

Software that doesn't work isn't helpful. When Epic works, it's beautiful, but when it doesn't work it's downright dangerous. Epic needs to work on the safety of its products. That, in turn, will increase the helpfulness factor.

I'll give Epic half credit on the helpfulness bit of Principle 7. As for innovation, there's a good mix of innovation and stagnation happening in Verona.

On the one hand, they haven't done much that's truly groundbreaking since taking over the entire industry. Their new products are primarily focused on providing an Epic option for specialty software that used to be sold by best-of-breed vendors. On the other hand, MyChart is really cool, as is Haiku and Canto.

Meriam-Webster defines innovation as merely an improvement over something existing. By that definition, Epic is constantly innovating, as their software is consistently getting better over time. However, my own exacting standards demand more. I feel that innovation needs to be more earth-shattering, like what the iPhone did to the cell phone industry. Giving patients easy access to their own health records was that kind of game changer. There's a Chronicles quote that says "Talent hits a target that no one else can hit. Genius hits a target that no one else can see." MyChart was genius. Beaker, Phoenix, Beacon, Thumper or iHeartHearts or whatever they're calling Cardiant now--those  all stem from talent. Innovation requires genius, in my book.

tl;dr: Epic does a pretty good job with innovation and helpfulness, by the dictionary definitions. I wish they would do more and try harder to be more helpful and innovative.