One of Epic’s earliest customers, Seattle-based UW Medicine, is doubling down on plans to continue growing with the company 30 years later — a move system CFO Jon Alford, who is also vice president of medical affairs at the University of Washington, said is key to keeping pace with new technology.
“We were Epic customer No. 30,” he said during a Becker’s “CFO and Revenue Cycle Podcast” episode. “Our first go-live was in 1996 with parts of Epic.”
Mr. Alford, who is about five months into his new role with UW Medicine, said the system is exploring ways it can update to Epic’s latest platform, similarly to how it’s done with Workday for its ERP system.
He said healthcare went through a period of customization, where many technologies and programs slanted toward allowing systems to dive into that trend. But now, customization could be working against organizations.
“[Organizations] need to get back to a base platform to be able to implement new technology faster as it starts to come at us,” he said.
Mr. Alford recently attended an Epic user group meeting, allowing him to further understand the modules and parts of the platform that UW Medicine is not fully tapping into and how UW Medicine can more seamlessly integrate Epic into their daily operations.
“I’m looking forward to looking at the legacy build that we have and figuring out where we can streamline and reduce the number of clicks for our physicians and APPs and the number of clicks for our revenue cycle staff,” he said. “From that, being able to start adopting some more of the features they’ll be rolling out soon that are more AI-based and automated.”
Apart from Epic, UW Medicine is prioritizing automation overall, looking for ways to reduce any incoming strain on the system ahead of any future impacts tied to industry headwinds, like HR 1 and changes to Medicaid eligibility.
The goal is to lean on these growing tools to reduce overhead costs that will counteract the loss of reimbursement.
“On the other side of that, [we’re] looking at how we can implement functionality with people, technology and processes, to be able to maximize Medicaid eligibility for our patients that end up on our doorstep in an emergent or trauma situation that we can quickly get them qualified if they do qualify,” he said. “We’re putting a lot of attention into how to capture those and then, just like everyone, how to lower our overhead to be able to survive a little bit longer in these tighter reimbursement times.”
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