• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

33 Charts

  • About
    • What is 33 Charts?
    • Bryan Vartabedian MD
  • Blog
  • 33mail
  • Foci
    • Social/Public Media
    • Physicians
    • Patients
    • Hospitals
    • Information
    • Process/Flow
    • Technology
    • Digital culture
    • Future Medicine
  • The Public Physician
Information, Technology

EPIC and Analog: A Tale of Two Offices

January 13, 2016 By Bryan Vartabedian · Reading Time: 2 minutes

epicThere are two doctors I work with: those using EPIC in my hospital network and those outside of EPIC.

Increasingly, the experience with the two providers is very different.

EPIC practice. I have full access to everything that’s ever been done to a child. After I see a patient my findings and impression are immediately available to the referring doctor. As labs are resulted, I sign, document, and release to the family with brief commentary. Patients message our office on MyChart. Engagement and documentation is baked in to the system. Email with patients is a thing of the past as adoption of EPICs comms features have taken hold. I seem to have a constant conversation with doctors inside of our EPIC ecosystem.

Non-EPIC practice. Care for a patient from a practice outside of our EPIC network is different. Bottom line: I have no access to anything that allows me to make decisions about complicated children. If I’m lucky, the patient arrives with a pile of paper. Otherwise, I call the referring office to request what I need. Shrinking margins have created shrinking staff. So I wait and wait and ultimately pass the on-hold line to my nurse who is, in turn, delayed in rooming my next patient. The wrong labs without the growth chart arrive an hour later by fax after the child has been discharged with a disposition and orders that may or may not replicate what was already done. When my chart is complete a ‘letter’ is generated that is printed on a piece of paper, put in an envelope and given to a man who carries it in a truck. The labs that I ordered interface with EPIC and change the plan long before the truck ever arrives at the the referring doctor’s mailbox.

I could go on and on but you get the picture.

The difference is between a system that functions in almost real-time versus one moving at the speed of paper, fax machines, land lines, trucks and marginal staffing. A dynamic, breathing digital interface versus a system defined by processes of the past.

The contrast is striking, really, but not necessarily new. For me, it raises serious questions about an evolving digital divide and the minimum standards for interoperability, communication and continuity of care. While EHRs certainly have their own shortcomings, when is a system so obsolete that it presents a serious compromise to patients?

For fun, some early thoughts on our EPIC integration from 2011.

Related Articles

  • The Comprehensive Health Record (CHR)
  • Transient EPIC Disconnect
  • Do Patients Have a Right to Understand the EHR?

Tagged With: EHR, Epic

Related Articles

  • The Comprehensive Health Record (CHR)
  • Transient EPIC Disconnect
  • Do Patients Have a Right to Understand the EHR?

Primary Sidebar

Bryan Vartabedian, MD

Bryan Vartabedian, MD
Bryan Vartabedian is the Chief Pediatrics Officer at Texas Children’s Hospital North Austin and one of health care’s influential
voices on technology & medicine.
Learn More

Popular Articles

  • The Fate of Fired Cleveland Clinic Resident Lara Kollab
  • Cures Act Final Rule – How It Will Change Medicine
  • 12 Things About Doximity You Probably Didn’t Know
  • Should Physicians Give Their Cell Phone Number to Patients?
  • Doximity Dialer Video – Telemedicine’s Latest Power Player

Sign up for 33mail newsletter

Featured Articles

Reactive and Creative Spaces

Doctors and the Endemic Culture of Permission

Doctors and social media: Damned if you engage, damned if you don’t

Yes, Doctor

100,000 Connected Lemmings

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Footer

What is 33 Charts?

With a mashup of curated and original content that crosses the spaces of digital health, media, communication, technology, patient experience, digital culture, and the humanities, 33 charts offers unique insight and analysis on the changing face of medicine.

Founded in 2009 as a center of community and thought leadership for the issues doctors face in a digital world, 33 charts was included in the National Library of Medicine permanent web archive in 2014.
Learn More

Foci

  • Digital culture
  • Digital Health
  • EHR/Health IT
  • Future Medicine
  • Hospitals
  • Information
  • Patients
  • Physicians
  • Process/Flow
  • Quality
  • Social/Public Media
  • Technology

Copyright © 2023 · 33 Charts · Privacy Policy