5 ms·

The hospital where my wife works just spent $1.2B (yes billion) on software written in MUMPS https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/05/31/partners-launches-

The hospital where my wife works just spent $1.2B (yes billion) on software written in MUMPS https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/05/31/partners-launches-billion-electronic-health-records-system/oo4nJJW2rQyfWUWQlvydkK/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/05/31/partners-lau... The company that provided the software is interesting: http://www.epic.com/ http://www.epic.com/ Based in a suburb of Madison Wisconsin, founded in the mid 1970's by a grad student who wrote some software for a local hospital. They grew organically by word of mouth never spending on sales or marketing. They landed Johns Hopkins as a client years ago and now Epic chooses which hospitals are allowed to "invest" in their software. They hire young grads right out of college who have never worked anywhere else - who find themselves trapped with completely non-transferable skills. It is like this company evolved in complete isolation from any outside influence on software development. Of course it is typical enterprise software developed by waterfall method that puts users last. My wife says the doctors are in open revolt. They have 1000's of open change requests - some critical to patient safety. For example the field to enter prescription instructions is only 64 characters. This is a hospital that administers chemotherapy so the instructions are more complicated than "take with food three times a day." The developer who got assigned that ticket had the nerve to suggest using abbreviations instead of making the change.

amorphid 11y ago
I never thought I'd suggest using a short URL on a prescription. (fake) bitly . com /grandapas-chemo-meds
carbocation 11y ago
What's entertaining is that MUMPS was developed at the Massachusetts General Hospital, which is now paying a third party over a billion dollars to use it in the form of Epic.
bbgm 11y ago
If you've used MyChart you've used EPIC. Both the hospital systems I've used here in the greater Seattle area use Epic for their EHR systems.
- chapium 11y ago
  Mychart is a patient portal and hardly resembles their full blown emr. Its really just a snapshot of orders and results for a single patient. much of the complexity in an emr is the integration of services, query, and data input.
Dwolb 11y ago
When I was young and dumb (now I guess I'm just dumb) and coming out of undergrad in the Midwest, I interviewed at Epic. Initially the experience was awesome - cool office spaces (the founder is an eccentric art collector), subsidized healthy lunch options, lots of young people around. But after I left the interview I did some research to find awful Glassdoor reviews of the company - the worst I've seen. There were also articles which alluded to heavy lobbying (not necessarily a bad sign, just weird) to get their software and services legally or protectively into hospitals. Overall an interesting company that I'm glad I avoided.
arglebarnacle 11y ago
As a healthcare IT professional I find this to be a highly misleading portrayal of what Epic is and its place in the industry. Epic is admittedly typical enterprise software that doesn't meet the standards we've come to expect in the 21st century. But you have to take that in the context of healthcare which is at least 20 years behind in this respect. Epic is far more sophisticated and good than 90% of the other options in use by real hospitals today. I'm only half joking when I tell my friends in tech that it's hard for me to talk about what I've seen. Not just bad software but horrible 80s era curses GUIs, truly garbage proprietary query languages, systems with 100 different pieces of shoddy vendor garbage bolted on here and there to cover the gaps in their functionality. Epic is best in class--and that's sad. Maybe 20 years from now we'll have EMR and patient accounting systems that will please 2015 HN.
ndonnellan 11y ago
Epic is the biggest EHR vendor.
raverbashing 11y ago
That's what you get when corporate heads pick the software vendor
ch4s3 11y ago
I do a bit of work with Epic as a 3rd party vendor, its interesting to say the least. The UX is pretty bad, but an internal human factors group seems to be gaining influence and decision making power in the organization. Its also odd because even as an older company, most of their workforce is in their mid 20's and early 30s, so change is coming eventually. That said, a bad Epic install will absolutely bankrupt a hospital. And not to be a pedant, but Epic's big break was with Kaiser, Hopkins came a years or two later.
- kylemhill 11y ago
  Most of their workforce has been in their mid 20's and early 30's for the last decade or so; demographic-inspired change isn't coming because they have such insanely high turnover.

amorphid 11y ago

I never thought I'd suggest using a short URL on a prescription. (fake) bitly . com /grandapas-chemo-meds

carbocation 11y ago

What's entertaining is that MUMPS was developed at the Massachusetts General Hospital, which is now paying a third party over a billion dollars to use it in the form of Epic.

bbgm 11y ago

If you've used MyChart you've used EPIC. Both the hospital systems I've used here in the greater Seattle area use Epic for their EHR systems.

chapium 11y ago
Mychart is a patient portal and hardly resembles their full blown emr. Its really just a snapshot of orders and results for a single patient. much of the complexity in an emr is the integration of services, query, and data input.

Dwolb 11y ago

When I was young and dumb (now I guess I'm just dumb) and coming out of undergrad in the Midwest, I interviewed at Epic. Initially the experience was awesome - cool office spaces (the founder is an eccentric art collector), subsidized healthy lunch options, lots of young people around. But after I left the interview I did some research to find awful Glassdoor reviews of the company - the worst I've seen. There were also articles which alluded to heavy lobbying (not necessarily a bad sign, just weird) to get their software and services legally or protectively into hospitals. Overall an interesting company that I'm glad I avoided.

arglebarnacle 11y ago

As a healthcare IT professional I find this to be a highly misleading portrayal of what Epic is and its place in the industry. Epic is admittedly typical enterprise software that doesn't meet the standards we've come to expect in the 21st century. But you have to take that in the context of healthcare which is at least 20 years behind in this respect. Epic is far more sophisticated and good than 90% of the other options in use by real hospitals today. I'm only half joking when I tell my friends in tech that it's hard for me to talk about what I've seen. Not just bad software but horrible 80s era curses GUIs, truly garbage proprietary query languages, systems with 100 different pieces of shoddy vendor garbage bolted on here and there to cover the gaps in their functionality. Epic is best in class--and that's sad. Maybe 20 years from now we'll have EMR and patient accounting systems that will please 2015 HN.

ndonnellan 11y ago

Epic is the biggest EHR vendor.

raverbashing 11y ago

That's what you get when corporate heads pick the software vendor

ch4s3 11y ago

I do a bit of work with Epic as a 3rd party vendor, its interesting to say the least. The UX is pretty bad, but an internal human factors group seems to be gaining influence and decision making power in the organization. Its also odd because even as an older company, most of their workforce is in their mid 20's and early 30s, so change is coming eventually. That said, a bad Epic install will absolutely bankrupt a hospital. And not to be a pedant, but Epic's big break was with Kaiser, Hopkins came a years or two later.

kylemhill 11y ago
Most of their workforce has been in their mid 20's and early 30's for the last decade or so; demographic-inspired change isn't coming because they have such insanely high turnover.