Epic has educated customers over the past year on the positive changes occurring with their move to quarterly from large upgrades after the February release of version 2018 (v2018). Epic will begin their 3-month release cycles in August 2018 to combine new features with fixes currently delivered as part of their Special Update (SU) packages. As part of the change, Epic is providing an 8-week project plan to guide organizations in balancing their maintenance with strategic initiatives.
While this is an adjustment for all organizations, it’ll be a larger adjustment for organizations a few versions behind v2018. Epic will continue providing patient safety and regulatory SUs to customers not upgraded to v2018 with the expectation they will catch up quickly to take advantage of new functionality and their new processes.
Since every organization is impacted by this change, we’ll dive into Epic’s enhancements to streamline and ease the transition:
Nova
Epic recommendations include an enhanced Nova Best Practices Checklist:
- Teams may begin work as soon as notes are assigned; without triaging or reassigning of tasks/notes.
- Each live application has assignment rules to cover all notes; there aren’t any more overlapping assignments.
- Tasks are now owned by a team instead of an individual.
- Tasks reflect reality; a build task does not need to be created to research or obtain a decision about proposed features.
- Each Organization’s Trainers are responsible for reviewing the training notes.
- Use of appropriate hand-offs in Nova; warm hand-offs such as email, call, team discussion, etc.
Build Wizard
The Build Wizard is included in v2018 and works with records in each organization’s system configuration to provide customized suggestions. Recommended build changes should be reviewed in a sidebar report before the changes are applied. There is a detailed build audit and change log history of all records and settings that were updated.
Training
For existing users, training and change management should remain unchanged, utilizing existing tools. Due to smaller releases and improved data courier to MST environments, trainers will not need to build their training environments to match their production environment. Trainers should now focus on lessons affected by the version’s content. Additionally, Epic provides the following enhancements to their services:
- Managing Systems - Annual Review
- Systems Capacity – Comprehensive assessment of go-lives, rollouts, new applications, platform changes, and technology stacks.
- Platform Planning – 2-year advanced look ahead at the prospective target platform updated with each new release.
- Role Specific Updates
- Kuiper – Increasing number of applications that can be deployed with Kuiper.
- ODBA – Automated database mapping and streamlined environment refreshes.
- ADBA – Epic continues to look at ways to automate upgrade steps to reduce upgrade downtime for Cogito.
For more information, visit the Epic Upgrade Hub or contact us at info@cerecore.net. Organizations may also contact their Epic TC for organization specific questions and readiness for moving to Epic v2018 or the 3-month upgrade schedule.
How We Can Help
Our team of Epic experts have extensive experience planning for quarterly upgrades and with single/double upgrades. We offer a wide range of services to assist you and help balance your workload with other strategic initiatives. Our team will provide a cost-effective means to bring your organization current and provide ongoing support. This will ensure you are current with the latest release and able to take full advantage of new functionality as it becomes available.
Our team will do a comprehensive evaluation of your current configuration to ensure the recommended upgrade changes align with you organizational and financial goals. This includes evaluation of quality and regulatory program compliance, Gold Stars, Honor Roll, and payer mix status to determine which features will best meet your needs. Whether you need an assessment, a roadmap, staff augmentation, or upgrade services, our team can help. We are happy to discuss how we may be a partner for your organization. To contact us, please email info@cerecore.net.
