Epic prides itself on quoting lower than competitors? WRONG- usually, they pride themselves on quoting higher than competitors, but delivering more.

It is also my opinion that Epic has carved out a good niche in the market based on hospital systems loaded with excess cash and have a risk-averse CIO and/or culture. It will be interesting to watch if the market perception of Epic changes with the downturn in the economy and with it the excess cash of those hospital systems who can afford Epic. Will Epic’s niche survive?

I’m not worried about the other component of Epic’s market niche – risk adverse CIOs. There will always be a ample supply of those.

It’s also not to true to say EPIC Consultants are charged out at a higher rate than most consulting companies. They are all in the $160/hr mark. However for the EPIC money you get a real programmer, not just a build analyst as you would with most consulting hives.

It’s pretty simple, you hire bad people and have bad managers looking after them, then it comes in over budget.

Now I know for a fact that the EPIC way is “Don’t take on any implementation you don’t think you can succeed in” Yeah it’s subjective and pretty arrogant. But hey look at the other facts. It’s the most successful product for achieving a real money saving and paperless hospital. Is it a case of EPIC getting of lightly or a case of CIO’s seeing the track record?

Keiser is an outlier in many ways. It’s the biggest single system (except the V.A) in the country, it’s a whole different set of challenges. From what I hear they did a much better job than Cleveland clinic considering the number of doctors and the hospital size. Nobody ever mentions internal politics being a factor of cost on this site, but out in the field it’s a common attribute to overruns both in cost and time. It’s always supplier, not internal staff or the politics of implementation. Even though all suppliers have over runs and implementations that come in over cost, and we have all heard stories of staff revolt and complete re-workings of workflows. The cost/time equation is far more subjective than the supplier. From my experience the sites that hire well and involve clinicians early in the process come in under cost.

I think EPIC clearly has the best current track record with 2-5 hospital groups in the country. That’s why they get the most sales, for now.

I am not sure if you know what you are talking about…what I was referring to is how Epic is able to still hold high regard in the big vendor world despite their obvious short comings, but if one of the other big vendors were to do the same thing it is just another ding on their record. If Cerner missed a go-live date, they would own up to it and it would be their fault. If Epic misses a go-live date, it is somehow the clients fault? Sure, in the above scenario it could very well be the clients fault in both instances, but how can Epic convince the client of this everytime?

You obviously do not have an understanding of the specific situation on hand with Grady. It’s not a shock that another hospital chose Epic (as Mr. HIStalk pointed out), it’s just a shock that Grady leadership, who can barely tie their own shoes, ignored their very own key requirements. I am not offbase by this “reality” considering it’s constantly reported on HIStalk that Epic is overbudget and not on time. Just funny and sad Grady screwed up again.