Another Reason to Sue Epic?

A coworker of mine alerted me to this: Mayo Clinic Health Information Offered Through Epic Patient Apps


The article is from (late) April of this year, so it's not exactly breaking news. The article states that Mayo Clinic and Epic are partnering to include health education content published/created by Mayo through Epic's MyChart application.


Because I'm trying not to be a hack, I searched for other articles for confirmation. I found this one on Healthcare IT News: http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/epic-mayo-clinic-team-integrate-symptom-checker-mychart-patient-portal. This article suggests that Epic will soon jump into the auto-diagnosis RoboDoc market. (I need a jpg of Robocop in a lab coat, now).


Being an Old Fart, I remember Microsoft getting in trouble for bundling MS Office software with its OS. Other health content vendors are available--Staywell, Relay Health, among others. If Mayo content gets provided with the software, how is that any different than the Microsoft antitrust lawsuit? If Corel was pissed then, Staywell should be livid now.

Epic at the Supreme Court

If you're interested, here's the oral arguments from the Epic's Supreme Court case.


text (78 page pdf)


downloadable audio file


Habush Habush and Rottier don't expect SCOTUS to make a final decision until winter or spring.

The Blacklist

(burying the lede)
Currently, the Supreme Court is deciding on the legality of Epic's clause in their employment contract that all disputes must be handled by individual arbitration--an action that Epic instituted to prevent all the class action lawsuits that they've been getting over the last few years. Here's a link to an article: TL;DR: SCOTUS is undecided, but not every justice has weighed in.




Lede:
I met a person who was actually affected by the heretofore-existed-only-in-threats-and-rumors Epic Blacklist. He was employed as an implementation analyst at a customer site (never an Epic employee) who was involved in various go-lives at that organization. We'll call him Ray.

After working with this customer and finishing a major go-live, Ray decided to leave the organization for some legitimate life reason, probably family related. His employer was cool with this, and it was an amicable separation. Ray wasn't fired, is what I'm saying. The employer liked him, was sorry to see him go, but was supportive of his future endeavors.

Ray got a job with an Epic-preferred consulting agency, and the agency asked Epic about his eligibility. Depending on which consulting firm agent asked which Epic employee, the firm received various answers as to when they could hire Ray--right now, a few months from now, or a calendar year after the hospital's go-live. The consulting firm found a placement for Ray at a new organization, but when it came time to actually get him working, the new org said it would cost them their "Good Install" to hire him. Ray ended up doing non-epic work until a year had elapsed.

It's real, people. And Epic enforces it by reaching into its customers' pocket books. Ray spoke to his consulting firm during all this, and the firm said that Epic set up Good Install/Good Maintenance as a way to have control over who gets to work on Epic products, without hairy legal issues. In effect, an Epic Client can hire whoever they want, but Epic might charge extra for the privilege of hiring certain people.

update:

A reader posted this on another page here:

How does leaving during an active implementation and/or go-live as a consultant/contractor affect your future job prospects? Can you be blacklisted for leaving a client abruptly? Not to pursue another client, but to take a long break.

Based on an N of 1, the blacklist is time-limited. If you leave during an active implementation, odds are good that you WILL get blacklisted. But the blacklist will probably only last a year. If your break is a year, then you shouldn't have any major consequences. If your break is a couple of months, you'll need to find some non-Epic work to do, or an Epic customer who doesn't mind pissing Judy off. Sutter Health comes to mind.