EPIC Capacity Concerns Aired

EPIC Systems of Wisconsin runs many of the hospital information systems here in the Chicago area, and recent "upgrades" to software have demonstrated noticeable slowing and occassional "hanging" of the system from time to time. While there are always issues with new software releases that need "fixing," these glitches are placed in a new light after reading concerns of a former employee at Kaiser Permanente, Juten Deal, who e-mailed concerns about the selection of EPIC as Kaiser Permanente's medical record system to his fellow employees. These issues included those of significant costs, conflicts of interest, and capacity concerns. While Kaiser responded to his e-mail after a "thorough investigation" and described his claims "an unfortunate combination of partial facts, old data, incomplete data, 'conspiracy' thinking, and naiveté" concluding that "It raised alarms that were extremely inaccurate."

I have a feeling this will not be the last we hear of this incident.

-Wes

References:
Justen Deal's website fixkp.org.
Wall Street Journal article (subscription) with links to the E-mail and Kaiser Permanente's response.
Kaiser Permanente's response.