Anyone works for Epic systems directly at madison, WI

rninformatics, DNP, RN · Apr 18, 2011

Greetings jmeng,

FYI, its not unusual for a consultant or for someone who works for a vendor to work a 60-70hr week.

I've been doing consulting for 10 years off and on. Some weeks I work 50-60+ hrs some weeks its 46hr. During a Go Live I have spent 24 hours on-site and worked 12-16hrs/day. Just as nurses dont automatically pack up and leave for the day when the clock strikes 5pm, 7pm or 7am so too it goes with Informatics, HIT/HIS professionals. Its not unusual for clinical analysts who work for/at hospitals to work those kind of hours either.

This specialty is not easy or low stress and often requires long hours, working with and in ambaguity, with resistant end users, implementing on-going and never ending changes, testing functionality that was suppose to fix something and then brakes something else and on and on.

This specialty can also be very rewarding when the fix does work or you ARE able to show the value of the electronic tools to over worked clinicians and successfully win over those that just last month were ready to lench you!

Nursing, Medical and Healthcare Informatics are specialties within the primary disciplines and I think very few Informatics professionals feel that they have "abandoned" nursing, medicine or healthcare practice. Many of us still practice clinically part time and believe that the successes of informatics practice benefit clinical nursing, medicine and healthcare.

As with all vendors (Epic included) and employers I've heard positive and negative things. What about the fact that with Epic you have to live in WISC? Very common - the majority of the folks that work for Meditech have to live in Mass; Cerner, Kansas City, MO, etc....

This is a good place to post related to getting feedback from other's who may also happen to work for Epic or other vendors. You might also post to Nursing L and the ANIA-CARING Listserve too.

Good Luck

Hi all,
I applied to epic RN analyst position to be trained in wisconsin and work there as well. However, I was given a personality test/IQ test and my position is changed to interface analyst/technical project manager. And had a phone interview already and awaiting to take skills test. Although I have a computer science degree prior to nursing, I have never worked with it and have forgotten to do coding. I have been a nurse for 5+ years and in need of change right now. So As i searched the internet i got negatives reviews about the company and how they overwork their employees...60-70 hrs a week with no overtime and how young and inexperienced their employees are. Well it sort of expected of corporate structure...but i am doing it for the experience to one day be able to become a consultant myself.
However, I need to know if there are any nurses who have gone through these processes. What are the skills test like? How is the working environment? Any regrets from abandoning nursing? Please your advice is greatly appreciated.
thanks

jmeng · Apr 18, 2011

Yes...i wanted to see any other nurse who have gone through this experience before? I find it so weird that they are giving me skills test which is mainly coding (well pseudocodes are acceptable LOL) as if I know either...and they've taken RNs with no computer backgrounds so was wondering if they were also given coding exams or something different?

ikarus01 · Apr 19, 2011

Yes...i wanted to see any other nurse who have gone through this experience before? I find it so weird that they are giving me skills test which is mainly coding (well pseudocodes are acceptable LOL) as if I know either...and they've taken RNs with no computer backgrounds so was wondering if they were also given coding exams or something different?

Epic is known for selling the idea that new grads fresh out of college can be trained to implement their system, and most likely that's why they give out that test to weed out the weaker candidates. One of my friends applied for a position and he was given that pseudo test you talk about and he said it was like the sat---verbal and math questions---but also, it had some pseudo code and some logic questions. He failed the test because he has always been a very slow test taker (test was timed) and he didn't really prepare for the exam I mean, after he took the test, he said maybe review an sat book to do analogies or the math questions like geometry, etc. Also, he found it hilarious that they were asking him his high school GPA and college GPA. He graduated from high school about 15 years ago....

And I have gotten emails from their recruiters and I once followed up with them and they told me that yea, i would have to move to Madison, WI and that yea, even with my so many years of implementing systems, i would still have to take this test, and yea, they also asked me about my GPA's.

As far as working hours---it all depends. I've worked for vendors and yes, sometimes you can work 50 hours a week, and many other times you just do the 40 hours or even less. Is all time management and how fast you're with your application and coming up with shortcuts to get stuff done.

Example, as a consultant once I was hired to configure an application based on all these spreadsheets. I'm damn good with spreadsheets so first thing i did was automate them so i could save some time. I ended up configuring the system in about 6 hours. I handed in my work and there were two other people working on the same thing i did and it took them 2 days EACH to do what I did in 6 hours!!! This example should illustrate that yes, you could work 60 hours a week, but you could also work less if you wanted too. Believe me, you won't find me working 50 or 60 hours every week, unless of course if i were working at epic. Then again, I've been hired for gigs because of my speed to get around and configure stuff. By the way, I have met some consultants who were ex epic employees and I've been told that's how you get promoted---you're expected to put in the extra hours no matter what. :eek:

Anyway...I have worked for some vendors and honestly, the most I've ever worked during a week was 50 hours and that was maybe for go lives which happen once or twice a year. Like anything else, there are cycles in the work. Sometimes you're just collecting data, and that might be an easy day, and other times you have a deadline and you have to troubleshoot a problem that might take hours. Also, I've worked remotely for many, many assignments and since you're not interrupted by meetings, or phones, or people coming to talk to you, i can finish jobs even faster....

Given your background, if the epic thing doesn't work out, I think you have good chances of finding other jobs. And regrets about leaving nursing??? NONE!!! In this profession you're at least treated with respect! Hell, some surgeons and physicians have shaken my hand and thanked me for helping them out. I never even got a 'thanks' when working as a nurse from any physician. Best of luck!!!

jmeng · Apr 19, 2011

verbal and math questions??? hmmm...i did something similar mixed with personality questions already. Its called Rembrandt profile test. They have some verbal question like if tiger:hunt what would fish:___ something like that as well as algebra questions. In my skills assessment question, I was told to have two parts...."...The first is a logic-based expression evaluation set. It tells you about a set of operators (like +, -, >,

The second assessment is a paper-and-pencil programming exercise. You may use any of the following languages: C, C++, C#, Pascal, BASIC, Visual BASIC or JAVA. We are focusing on logic and problem solving, not syntax, which is why we also accept pseudocode..."

I understand the first part...but the second part i am nervous about...I kind of refreshed my C++ knowledge but it has been so so long time ago that i may not have time to fully understand it....I kind of feel i may fail but i will give it a try....

But my main concern now is that....will they certify me being I will be their employee? I know most of my friends who are epic certified because their employers (i.e. hospitals) sent them to get the training for 3 months or so...but being their employee, will they really certify me? I am willing to put up with all their non-sense, only if I will be certified at the end. So that once i leave, I can become a consultant. And another thing i want to know is about their non-compete contract...once you leave epic, ex-employee is not allowed to work for any of their clients (i.e hospitals who use Epic)...is that really true????? what kind of things can an ex-employee do after leaving epic??? Bedside nursing LOL LOL or work for them till life...

WIN007 · Apr 22, 2011

verbal and math questions??? hmmm...i did something similar mixed with personality questions already. Its called Rembrandt profile test. They have some verbal question like if tiger:hunt what would fish:___ something like that as well as algebra questions. In my skills assessment question, I was told to have two parts...."...The first is a logic-based expression evaluation set. It tells you about a set of operators (like +, -, >,
The second assessment is a paper-and-pencil programming exercise. You may use any of the following languages: C, C++, C#, Pascal, BASIC, Visual BASIC or JAVA. We are focusing on logic and problem solving, not syntax, which is why we also accept pseudocode..."
I understand the first part...but the second part i am nervous about...I kind of refreshed my C++ knowledge but it has been so so long time ago that i may not have time to fully understand it....I kind of feel i may fail but i will give it a try....
But my main concern now is that....will they certify me being I will be their employee? I know most of my friends who are epic certified because their employers (i.e. hospitals) sent them to get the training for 3 months or so...but being their employee, will they really certify me? I am willing to put up with all their non-sense, only if I will be certified at the end. So that once i leave, I can become a consultant. And another thing i want to know is about their non-compete contract...once you leave epic, ex-employee is not allowed to work for any of their clients (i.e hospitals who use Epic)...is that really true????? what kind of things can an ex-employee do after leaving epic??? Bedside nursing LOL LOL or work for them till life...

you won't be the only one with that idea I an assure you. Even if they do, chances are they'll make you sign, as would any hospital,an agreement to stay on a certain amount of time or reimburse for the costs of. Epic DOES have a rep for being a young, lefty, burnout environment. that is of course true with many software development environments (the burnout at least). You might be happier getting on with an organization that is doing an EPIC implementation. There are plenty.

My biggest complaint with Epic is that they are located in the middle of nowhere. not just wisconsin, but Nowhere,

Wisconsin. And I'd rather get on with a company that's smaller and going to be the next great thing where there's some opportunity rather than being just a cube. But that's me.

ikarus01 · Apr 25, 2011

from the latest histalk blog:

"Epic. They gave me a great start in healthcare IT (I didn’t exactly have recruiters pounding on my door as a fresh liberal arts graduate), but it’s truly a sweatshop for most people because of 70-80 hour weeks, lack of work-life balance, and travel. I got sick during a Monday-Saturday work trip and had to go to urgent care. The PA there said they see Epic staff constantly because they travel during normal appointment hours and need antibiotics since they can’t take time off to recover. In our March 2011 staff meeting, Judy spent five minutes going over the HIStalk awards and seemed to be tickled pink with her ‘industry figure with whom you’d most like to have a few beers’ award, although she said the would have to drink a chocolate milkshake since she doesn’t drink – at corporate events, we have ‘mocktails.’ As is obvious, sales are through the roof and we dread hearing the wedding music playing over the PA to indicate a new sale since Epic truly does not have the experienced implementation staff to support all the new customers. Experienced employees used to have two customers, now 3-4 are the norm. Please keep me anonymous – Judy warns us every single month at the staff meeting not to post anything about Epic to blogs.”

jmeng · Apr 26, 2011

LOL...thanks everyone. I took the test today and in the middle of the test I realized that this isnt for me. I exited in the middle of the exam. How can non-technical people be given these hard tests????? Anyhow...i will no longer seek employment with Epic...I will stick with bedside for now and look for infrmatics job else where...thanks!!! I have not read not one good response about epic in any blog...and Wisconsin...NO...what was I thinking???????