The Vurge

Mastering Epic's Hyperdrive Migration: Strategies for Successful Organizational Transition (ft. Adam Tallinger & Dana Locke)

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Ready to navigate the complexities of the Epic Hyperdrive migration process? Join us, as we sit down with Divurgent Team Members, Adam Tallinger, the Executive Vice President of Client Service, and Dana Locke, the Vice President of Delivery, who share their expertise on executing a successful transition. From staffing considerations to third-party integrations, to managing upgrade backlogs, they've got you covered. You'll come away with tangible tips to prepare for your own organizational shift.

As we transition into the second part of the conversation, we shift our focus to the human element. Imagine revamping your workflows in such a way that they not only streamline processes but also significantly improve user satisfaction and reduce burnout. Sounds enticing, right? We also delve deeper into the backend connection and infrastructure side of the migration process which, while a hefty task, is a crucial factor in driving efficiency. Finally, we emphasize the value of trial runs and gathering feedback, before rolling out changes on a larger scale. Get ready for a deep, insightful journey into the heart of organizational change.

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Rebecca Woods:

Welcome everyone to another episode of The Vurge, where we are talking about the Epic Hyperdrive migration. We have Adam Tallinger, the Executive Vice President of Client Services, and Dana Locke, the Vice President of Delivery. Welcome everyone.

Adam Tallinger:

How are you?

Rebecca Woods:

Good morning, Dana. do you want to start off just giving us a brief intro of your background and how you got to work here at Divurgent and your expertise in Epic?

Dana Locke:

Absolutely. Thank you so much, yep. I have been in healthcare IT for over 25 years. Started off working at Meditech doing large Meditech implementations back in the day. Then I migrated and worked for several vendors where I did some OR and ED software implementations across large organizations, eventually landing at a large healthcare system and working through an EPIC implementation, focusing on all things Epic, but primarily on the ambulatory space, as well as the project management and testing and training components, came to Divergent a little less than a year ago. Had worked with them from a go live support perspective in several different ways and staff augmentation as we needed some critical resources, and was excited to join the team to help move our solutions as it relates to EMR adoption and optimization.

Rebecca Woods:

Awesome thanks, dana. Thanks for coming on the verge of us today. Adam, do you want to give us a little background about yourself? I know you have some pharmacy background there.

Adam Tallinger:

Sure sure. So I started my career as a critical care pharmacist and moved into IT back in around 2005 or so. I've got about 30 years combined experience there, so I'm the old guy on the call here and during that time I've led a number of EPIC implementations or advised at the board or senior leader level and have been with the Divergent for about a two and a half years, and I lead our sales division but also work to inform our methodology as well as our firm direction.

Rebecca Woods:

Awesome. So who wants to start giving us a little brief overview of the EPIC hyperdrive migration? Dana, do you want to start with your knowledge of what all this big project's going to entail?

Dana Locke:

Yeah, absolutely I would love to. So everybody that's been in the EPIC space for a while, for the last couple years, has heard about this hyperdrive migration. But what is it really? So hyperdrive is EPIC's next generation of their platform. So we have hyperspace today and hyperdrive is the next rev of that.

Dana Locke:

What it's intending to do is really take away from the more thick client install that hyperspace is today and moving towards in a web browser or thinner footprint installation. So this is phase one. There's going to be multiple phases to kind of get there, but in this phase one There's a large impact to the IT staffing and an organization to really help migrate to this initial phase Down the road. What Epic is looking to do is to allow this to be, as I said, an easier deployment from a desktop deployment perspective, ideally getting rid of kind of that third party presentation layer. A lot of people use Citrix for that. So being able to get rid of that as a tool to deploy Epic, as well as being a browser-based application, it will allow for more integration with other systems, so being able to help advance that API integration. Obviously, not all of that is going to be functional in day one, but that is the path that Epic is moving towards to be able to be that more integrated solution than that lighter weight client.

Rebecca Woods:

Awesome. How about the third parties that we are now going to have to integrate and upgrade our work with? Do you want to elaborate a little bit on that?

Dana Locke:

Yeah, when you think about a hyperdrive migration, as I like to call it, because it is a journey in this first rev, there's a few key things that you really need to consider When you think about Epic proper. So the functionality within Epic obviously, for clients that aren't on foundation, this is really an opportunity to move to foundation, get things more standard. Epic is obviously pushing that more and more and has built up that foundation content. So being on foundation does make future upgrades and the migration to hyperdrive a lot easier from that perspective. But we all integrate with more than just Epic, right? Epic only does so many things For systems that you are integrating and launching out of Epic, such as your PAC system, whatever that might be, your document management system.

Dana Locke:

If you're doing any kind of dictation system, any custom applications that you're launching and integrating with Epic today, you really need to do thorough testing of those but also work with your third party vendors to understand what version is the compliant hyperdrive version. Epic has been working with those third parties for several years trying to get them up to speed, to get them to release these versions. But what's happening is that now there is a backlog of every client moving at the same time to hyperdrive and all of these clients needing to get upgrades for the third parties. So actively working with those third party systems getting in their pipeline for upgrade is going to be critical to success because you don't want that to delay your hyperdrive migration.

Rebecca Woods:

Yeah, i can see all the third parties getting in their queues but then getting in the Epic queue and having to. It's quite a project to organize.

Dana Locke:

Yeah, on top of the Epic quarterly upgrades that a lot of customers are taking, whether you're doing it quarterly, twice a year or once a year, getting in and really planning all of that is going to be really critical to success. I mean, this transition can last anywhere from some organizations or trying to do it within a nine month. Some are taking more 18 months. It really depends upon your resource availability, how fast you want to push it and, again, some of the other dependencies.

Dana Locke:

Obviously within large IT organizations, epic is not the only game in town. Everybody has other strategic projects as well. So fitting it into your roadmap strategically, i think, is going to be really really critical to the success. The other thing is, obviously there is a lot of Epic transition work that needs to happen. So Epic is migrating certain functionality or certain pieces to new, new ways of doing it to align with the new web-based functionality, and so that pre-work and a lot of that cutover work that can be done even before you migrate to Hyperdrive is going to take a lot of time. If you think about it from an organizational transition perspective, you are really going to be in that constant change mode for your end users for a while as you're doing this, prep transition work?

Rebecca Woods:

Is it a Hyperdrive, a transition where you can phase the goal live, or does it have to be a big bang sort of switch?

Dana Locke:

No, an Epic actually recommends it, and so do we here to do a multi-phased rollout. Obviously, the first thing that you want to want to do is figure out your pilot. So once you've done all of that epic build and configuration transition, you have your third parties upgraded. That can mostly happen prior to the actual cutover to Hyperdrive And then we would recommend doing a significant pilot. You really want to get feedback around that pilot. So some keys to success with the pilot You need to pick users that are going to be on that single device. So some of the challenges if you're going to activate Hyperdrive on a device, living and having people in both worlds is going to be really challenging. So you want to pick users who typically are on the same device, or units or centralized areas where you can kind of contain that. So things like a full ambulatory clinic or a nursing unit, or you might even go to the ED areas or radiology areas where the user population is somewhat self-contained, so that you can do that technical transition.

Dana Locke:

The other thing that I believe is critical is that feedback loop And so getting feedback from users. We all know silence is not acceptance. So identifying those issues, being out there, watching it, seeing it, having that go live support or that at the elbow Users whatever model you use at an organization is going to be really critical to getting that feedback. Once you have that pilot, then go into a larger scale deployment And that might be one of your sites, a larger area of population, different units, you know, depending on how you want to stagger that out. But you know, if you could do one of your hospitals maybe it's a smaller organization or your ambulatory center or something like that to get that larger feedback And then go house wide across your entire network. You do want to do that within a reasonable timeframe because living in that hybrid world for users and for the IT team is going to be challenging. So ideally six to eight weeks from beginning to end. It's going to be your sweet spot.

Adam Tallinger:

Yeah, one of the items that's kind of a misnomer out there is that going in this direction will allow you to move away from the deployment layer of Citrix out there, and that's really not the case. A lot of organizations have a significant investment in Citrix for other applications And you know this may allow you to decrease some of the licenses that you need over time, but it's certainly not something you should take out of your budget for 2024.

Rebecca Woods:

Okay, That's good to know. That's a good nugget there. So there's lots of you know to do for the upgrade. There's a lot of vendors to include and bring along. Adam, do you want to speak to the workflow? you know efficiencies and what will be changing and how we can, you know, design this around the end users that will be really be going through the massive change and switch over.

Adam Tallinger:

Sure, i think we have the name of the game here is opportunity? I think there's. You know there's a number of workflows that change right now with this initial movement towards hyperdrive. You know, primarily in the access scheduling kind of side of things, a lot of the workflows change there. What we have there is that opportunity to look at those workflows and redesign them from a human centered standpoint.

Adam Tallinger:

Uh, when we moved into the enterprise EHR arrow with meaningful use back in the the late 2000s, we designed workflows. We looked at things like failure mode effects analysis. Then we piled on lean and six Sigma to make the projects a little bit easier to swallow there. But what we didn't do is we didn't look at how it's affecting the end users. We did a lot of telling the end users on what they, what they're going to be doing, but we didn't do a lot of asking how that's going to affect them out there. And now we have that opportunity to look at those workflows, um, do the journey mapping, look at it from that empathetic standpoint on the users and build in better processes going forward. I think you know my belief is that's still why we're out there counting clicks today, um, why we never got past that point of um um dissatisfaction within EHR.

Rebecca Woods:

So what I'm hearing is it's a real opportunity to do a major upgrade, but also look at the opportunities to um around efficiency, improve the end-unit satisfaction, hopefully decrease some burnout and really bridge that gap between Epic and the vendors and the end users that are actually going through the major change. Do you want to add anything, Dana?

Dana Locke:

No, i totally agree with Adam rate Don't, don't waste a good opportunity, um. So getting out there and understanding and how you can streamline those workflows. You know a lot of time we decide to give give users the tools right, Just give them that in case they need it, give them the access and and clutter up that workspace And so streamlining a lot of that workspace cleanup, making it more efficient, obviously, having tools there that are needed and the ability to pull them. But you know, 90% of the time if you're using the same five things well, i have 10 things on your screen It's, it's overwhelming, um, and it's just too much for a lot of the users. So, using it as that opportunity to make it better and to show the value to the end users, and I think you know the overall satisfaction and adoption will continue to increase.

Adam Tallinger:

Yeah, i think Dana brings up a really good point about kind of digital noise out there And there's a there's a great book out there called golden and it talks about the noise in our lives and whether it's physical noise, digital noise or rumination in our heads. there on the digital noise front, we are so used to having so much information thrown at us that making things simple so people can move from one step to the next instead of just piling in what they might need to see uh, is going to increase user satisfaction. It, it. it takes away the complication that we build into the systems and makes things more simple and intuitive.

Rebecca Woods:

What a nice thought to take away the noise so they can really focus on the patient that's there in front of them and sit all the extra buttons that really, if you're not tech savvy, can be quite frustrating and distracting for the for them to focus on their, their job. What? let's move over to? um Adam, i think you touched on it extra clicks. Is this going to decrease clicks for us or increase clicks? improve the efficiency that way? And how can we maybe incorporate some robotic process automation in the workflows to help reduce the screen movements as well?

Adam Tallinger:

Yeah, i think if it's done right and done with that, that human center design component, we can actually decrease the number of clicks out there and improve that satisfaction. As you mentioned, robotic process automation is another element that we can layer in and add to that taking tasks that are repeatable or mundane, things that we can flow out that don't require a human brain to make a decision out there. Let's build in that automation and take away those steps. None of this is gonna take away somebody's job, but what it is going to do is it's going to make their job easier.

Rebecca Woods:

How about the backend connecting and the infrastructure side? Dana maybe, or the appropriate one to answer this question. Is this going to be a heavy lift for them not so heavy and will it make their jobs easier as well?

Dana Locke:

Yeah. So with the deployment of Hyperdrive, epic is standardizing some of their deployment tools. So at first pass it is going to be a change. So getting used to their new deployment tools, such as Kuiper if you're not using that already for other components of Epic and understanding how to push out and update the client, it is definitely a different change, but its intent is to make it easier and allow an easier deployment and management going forward. So I think there will be some long-term value and streamlined processes there to be able to support that.

Dana Locke:

The other consideration or thing that we need to make sure of is making sure the devices are up to speed. So obviously lots of things plug into Epic and so making sure your peripherals still work and plug into that. Making sure your desktop devices whatever devices those may be are still up to speed. Also, looking at the roadmap of where Epic is going from a device need perspective and building that into your procurement cycle now. So testing out those devices, making sure you have the ability to purchase those if you're on a five-year refresh cycle on your end-user devices, making sure you're looking forward and not buying today's model for tomorrow when you might need something else. So really being smart, as Epic is thinning out that client to make sure you're updating your devices according to your refresh cycle.

Rebecca Woods:

What does it look like for training? So I'm the provider? One, how much training am I going to have to undergo, because that takes up my time when I can see patients? And two, if I walked in and let's say we didn't I didn't know about the Go Live and I walk in the next day and we've switched over to Hyperdrive, how much will I really notice a difference? The screens change. What would that look like for me?

Dana Locke:

Yeah. So a lot of the work is to be done before the actual transition to Hyperdrive. So if you're in an iterative cycle and you're deploying these changes in advance, the majority of the changes are likely to hit you in the months leading up to the actual transition and cutover, though there are things that need to be done at that cutover as well. But the majority of change from the end-user perspective is going to be done in those changes prior to that. So day one, if you didn't know Hyperdrive was going on, there should be. There will be some impact, but it shouldn't be super significant. If you think about other changes that Epic has done, such as several years ago when they did storyboard huge change, everything kind of shifted and your muscle memory had a change. I used to look at the top, now I need to look at the left.

Dana Locke:

Not that it wasn't there, but we all know what happens when you get an upgrade, and I'm used to clicking in the upper right corner And now I have to go to the lower left. So there are some of those And they're gonna vary across the board. But most of that change management and those, those changes are gonna be done.

Rebecca Woods:

Go ahead, adam, you had a yeah and I think, yeah.

Adam Tallinger:

I think there's an opportunity here also for In this post pandemic world, where people are a little bit more used to Working across the screen rather than traveling to a location for training or just looking at a PowerPoint for for training out there, in Developing some micro-learnings or using things like Virtual instructor led training out there or in context training to help Move that forward where it's less obtrusive, where somebody needs to not take time out of their day to go focus on training but it's more Built into their workflow as they move forward awesome.

Rebecca Woods:

I love that. Dana, what is the cutoff date for? or? Or is there a cutoff date for, like you have to be on hyperdrive by by you know a certain day and How long? I think you had said it, but remind me how long for that implementation length. If I am waiting till the last minute of my hospital, and waiting till the last minute, how quick and you know I obviously size varies, but For you know, mid-sized hospital, how quick can I get it done because I'm waiting till the last minute?

Dana Locke:

Yeah, so you know, like I mentioned, it is a journey and different, different organizations are going to take different amount of time To try to get this done, depending upon how you want to do it. Epic has also skipped a version. If you think about their quarterly upgrade cycle, epic has is skipped a version to Try to allow time for people to do that. So just still stay up. So I think you know. Again, i think on average you're probably talking a 10 to 12 month effort Could be more, depending upon your third-party upgrades and some of the other work that you're going on.

Dana Locke:

Epic did start the availability of hyperdrive in their May 22 version. So you, you have several versions to be updated. Epic hasn't set a hard date yet, though They are actively, i think, encouraging their customers to move. They do know that there's going to be some resistance out here in the market. So so you have from that May 22 version to May 23 version. At that point you are going to need to upgrade. But again, epic has that a little bit of that. We're requiring some of those upgrades. But yeah, definitely epic is moving towards there and at some point they are gonna, you know, no longer support and SU back any changes, so it's gonna force those late adopters.

Rebecca Woods:

Awesome. Is there any other little nuggets that we can give the Listeners as they enter into? you know, a major upgrade and and change. That really involves a lot of vendors. This time You can't just do it in-house.

Dana Locke:

Yeah, i mean I would say and I'll let Adam add in plan, plan, plan. Think about it where it fits into your, your cycles, with your upgrades, with your other work. Think about how you can break up that pre-wreck work over time and do that And really don't just throw in these changes. It's easy to do that, but look at them, redesign them, really focus and use it as an opportunity to improve other challenging workflows. Adam.

Adam Tallinger:

Yeah, well said, dana, and I think you know, along with that, planning is really just making sure that you have that communication line open with your third parties out there to make sure that they're not going to be the roadblock for you Or, if they are the roadblock, that you need to build your plan around that timing as well.

Dana Locke:

Awesome. I really feel that that pilot is super critical to get feedback. I know I said it before right, silence is not acceptance. So make sure you're thinking about that and how to get the most from those users. If you have active super users, that's great. I know that's a challenge across a lot of organizations, so get out there, watch it, see it figure out that support model so that you can get that feedback, so that you can fix or iterate anything before you go to a larger group and across your whole entire network.

Rebecca Woods:

Yeah, it's really nice that we don't have to do a big bang and you can have that pilot to test things out. Thank you so much for your time today. If anybody listening you know you can reach out to us here at divurgent. com if you have other questions or need help with your Hyperdrive upgrade, and I hope you guys have a great rest of your Friday.