Epic is great to access from home or anywhere there is a wifi connection. It is very convenient for office or hospital employees. One time when it is not optimal is when I write a Certification of Terminal Illness for a hospice patient. I can never see it again. It drops off of Epic. I wish those notes would remain.
Cadence Enterprise Scheduling is particularly useful in a multiple provider, multiple location scenario. It is also quite useful in situations where there are multiple rooms or pieces of equipment that need to be scheduled.
Interdisciplinary Communication: The care of patients improves when you are able to have the entire care team communicate with each other. Epic makes this process very easy by utilizing one chart for all physicians in the organizations. Care decisions and patient safety are greatly improved by seeing past decision making processes.
Patient Communication: With features like MyChart and Care Everywhere, Epic gives patients a great deal of control over their information. MyChart acts like a patient portal allowing them to see what their providers have to say, see lab results, make payments, and share information with their doctor all from a mobile device or computer. Having features like this allow the patient to take part in their care.
Improves Claim Efficiency: The way that Epic handles insurance claims is incredible. Claims are correct and double checked before they are sent to the insurance companies. This in turn, reduces the number of denials and improves the speed of payments.
The system is simple to use it helps schedulers create appointments and, avoids placing patients in situations where they are scheduled at the same time in different facilities.
It has many reports that can help managers maintain a smooth operation and shows what areas need to improve.
It has a one place for all scheduling information for schedulers to see patient's appointments, especially when patients do not recall where or when their next appointments will be.
The system can be created in such a way that you can control who can make appointments and who can't.
They system when built provides warnings to schedulers helping to minimize many scheduling errors like overbooking.
Questionnaires: EPIC seems to be very stringent on questionnaires and how may can be attached (only 1) on a Cadence level causing us to be quite inventive on how to get questioned answered on only certain visit types. One big stumbling block was the Ebola questionnaire. Currently we have a particular questionnaire for new Phy. Therapy patients which prevents us from adding the Ebola questionnaire to NEW patients. We are still struggling with this.
Patient Itinerates used for multiple appointments: Not very professional looking regardless of how you set up (OP visits, instructions etc: Most practices will not use the itinerary therefore adding dollars to having printing cards with the practice name on them. (the old fashioned way)
Building new DEP records: Wish there was a way to copy entire builds from one DEP to another.
Security": EPIC security is a nightmare to develop for multi faced users. RN that schedule appointments. Many of our practices are small practices that only have 2-3 people (the doc, the RN and the scheduler/biller . This creates the need for everyone to do everything from a scheduling perspective and building this security can become very cumbersome from practice to practice as each is unique.
You should invest time into taking a training class before using Epic, but once you get the hang of it the usability features are endless! My favorite part about Epic is how it is automated and "trained" to catch user errors that would typically be missed in normal documentation/charting. This ensures accuracy and eliminates errors.
As stated earlier, it seems to be the best out there, from a built perspective as well as a user application. While some practices feel it to be time consuming (Cadence/Prelude) together others who see the whole integration thru the Epicare and Resolute systems love it. From an IT perspective, while sometimes cumbersome to build, the end results are pleasing and satisfying. We can usually accomplish what we set out to do with the practice vision in mind.
A dedicated support staff for each module/area is provided by Epic. This is beneficial for points of contact, however, not all support staff are created equal, and there seems to be high turnover in these roles(staff seems to turn over every 1-2 years). This can make it challenging for continuity and quick support resolution as new staff are not as familiar with organization-specific needs, environments, and/or questions.
EPIC has been great in their support and communication at all hours. They also openly communicate when an application TS (Technical Support) will be away and who is covering for that person. During standard non working hours - you always know what number and who to call to get resolution to issues that arise at those times
Use implementation team from EPIC but know what you want and make sure that it=s what you get. You can be easily swayed by lack of knowledge on the application and therefore decisions are made that are not correct and then have to be redone. EPIC including Cadence needs a great understanding of the workflows you currently have and how they will be impacted by your build. We had a great understanding of the existing workflows in the offices, however lack of knowledge on the Cadence IT side, had a large impact on what was delivered as our implementers believed that a standard EPIC workflow would suffice and did not.
Epic gives extensive customization options in terms of utility and view. I have found this to be highly useful and efficient EHR as compared to other EHRs we use in our organization.
Centricity was limited in ability to scale and customize compared to Cadence for our environment. Also the regular updates for Cadence vs. Centricity is where Cadence really shines. Vendor support is also much better with Cadence over Centricity. We also like the robust capability of the reporting module in Cadence over other vendors.
It must have had a positive impact as things get done quicker, leading to easier billing/coding. It must be saving a lot of money and time. I am not aware of a better product.
