Our Epic Journey: Celebrating 10 Years

It was 2014, and the ice bucket challenge was the latest trend. Apple released a revolutionary watch and movie theaters premiered the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie. Meanwhile, closer to home, Houston Methodist embarked on our own groundbreaking journey: the implementation of Epic. We transformed more than 100 systems and paper-based processes into one cohesive platform used across HM. In June of that year, the contract with Epic was signed and the first project team was formed.

This August a special 10-year star was unveiled on the Epic Corp. campus in Verona, WI, to commemorate our anniversary.

“Moving to Epic was a pivotal moment in the history and growth of Houston Methodist,” said Roberta Schwartz, executive vice president and chief innovation officer. “It signaled a very real effort at bringing our numerous disparate systems and workflows into one, cohesive tool. It helped us paint a comprehensive view of our patients’ complete story, which continues to advance our ability to care for patients.”

Laying the Foundation for Epic

Our Epic journey was one of the largest implementations in HM’s history. It included seven staggered launches taking place from 2015 through 2017. To ensure this was “the best Epic implementation ever,” more than 20,000 providers, clinicians, staff and leaders were required to complete Epic training. We deployed over 1,000 Epic “at-the-elbow” support team members who worked alongside super users from each unit and department.

Epic ushered in significant improvements for patients, care teams and staff and paved the way for numerous integrations and innovations that would shape how we work and care for our patients.

Epic Milestones

Over time, we’ve made numerous improvements to Epic, helping to make it more user-friendly, while striving to promote greater efficiencies in documentation and time management for our teams. Some notable milestones include:

2019

Alaris IV Pump Integration: Epic was integrated with IV pumps, allowing data to seamlessly flow to and from the device. This allows for improved patient safety and more efficient and detailed documentation, as well as decreased potential errors.

2020

Barcode Specimen Scanning: Clinicians began scanning patients’ wristbands to verify their identity, and a nearby label printer to associate the specimen, patient and label. This ensured greater accuracy, reduced the risk of errors and eliminated the need for labs to re-label specimens if the labels didn’t print as expected.
Secure Chat: Messaging within Epic improved communication and collaboration between providers, nurses, clinicians and other staff. Messages about patients were exchanged on-the-go, and when using Epic apps like Haiku, Canto or Rover.

2021

Community Connect: Independent providers and small health care organizations began purchasing our best-in-class Epic EHR and practice management system for use in their practices. This promoted a collaborative relationship between HM and our community partners.

Making Epic Work for You

Many of our Epic changes are focused on making it easier for you to care for our patients and efficiently do your work, without being weighed down with heavy administrative burdens. Today, more than 4,500 providers and 12,000 nurses access Epic while they’re on the go. In addition, more than 404,000 flowsheets were documented using a mobile device last year.

“We want to promote human contact and empathy in health care,” said Dr. Jordan Dale, chief medical information officer, “so we’re looking towards technologies that promote those personal connections while also making documentation and patient care easier for providers, clinicians and staff. The goal is keep developing a symbiotic relationship between Epic, the patient and you.”

Your Voice Matters

In 2022, we launched the KLAS Arch Collaborative Survey to identify opportunities for Epic improvement and evaluate your EHR experience in comparison to similar health care organizations. Initial findings from our 2024 survey found our overall satisfaction rates among the top in the survey’s history. Satisfaction and training metrics were up, and clinicians are pleased with the support they’re receiving. More details on the survey’s results will be shared next quarter.

“Just by listening to clinicians and clinical leaders, we’ve been able to identify a number of opportunities to improve clinician efficiency,” said Lisa Stephenson, chief nursing informatics officer. “Since March, we’ve reduced the time nurses spend actively working in Epic by 15 minutes. Innovations like BioIntelliSense should help redistribute work further and hopefully spark more improvement ideas.”

Reaching for the Stars

Every year, Epic Corp. recognizes their customers through the Gold Stars program. This measures how well we are taking advantage of the features that Epic offers. This year, we were once again recognized for obtaining a Gold Stars level 9. Only 16% of Epic organizations attain a level 9 or above. This was our fourth time to earn this distinction, and the ninth time out of 10 years to be recognized with a Gold Stars achievement (we received Gold Stars level 8 in 2016—2019 and 2023).

Our Next Update on Sunday, Oct. 6

While the ice bucket challenge has come and gone, our Epic journey continues, stronger than ever. We continue to bring new features and innovative ideas to the forefront. Our next Epic Update is Sunday, Oct. 6. To learn more about changes for your role, review your Update Companion by visiting it.houstonmethodist.org/epicupdate.

Barcode Specimen Scanning: Clinicians began scanning patients’ wristbands to verify their identity, and a nearby label printer to associate the specimen, patient and label. This ensured greater accuracy, reduced the risk of errors and eliminated the need for labs to re-label specimens if the labels didn’t print as expected.
Secure Chat: Messaging within Epic improved communication and collaboration between providers, nurses, clinicians and other staff. Messages about patients were exchanged on-the-go, and when using Epic apps like Haiku, Canto or Rover.