Epic's Unethical EHR Certification Process

By Dan

I don’t have any objection to certification exams being difficult.

I have great difficulty accepting unethical or dishonest exams:

  • exams that defame the customer or candidate
  • certification rules that change midstream
  • exams where reward money is great and yet is a carrot on a string controlled by the tester without accountability
  • exams that subject sincerely diligent and committed candidates to repeated mortifying humiliation before management affecting their employment

Many Pass Epic’s Exams

Low fog over Oakhurst

Many people pass Epic’s exams. I passed several myself. Most of them I passed with flying colors–either with perfect scores or near-perfect scores.

So why would anybody question the fairness or legitimacy of Epic’s certification exams? Most of the time they are perfectly legitimate. Or at least they look that way. Sometimes people fail the exams, but with a little effort, the candidate can study and retake the exam successfully the next time around.

Since the goal is to make sure the candidate has learned the material well enough to perform reasonably well on the job, all seems good.

The Dung in the Ointment

When Epic’s certification process works, it works really well. But, certification can be like a pure, fresh glass of water with only one drop of pufferfish liver oil in it. Or it can be like a wonderful healing ointment on a cold sore on your face, but mixed with some animal dung.

I am sure a nice, cool glass of 99.99% pure water would taste wonderful. But if you were to drink it, it would be your last.

A 99% pure certification process works similarly.

I completed my certifications for Hyperspace, Chronicles Non-Programmer, Installation Tools. Three certifications were completed. And I was performing well according to Epic and my employer, Community Medical Center’s according to my reviews.

I completed all three grueling two-day projects for Cache Systems Management certification. And I completed the first two of three certification exams.

However, after working hard to complete the CSM exams, the last exam seemed blocked. My scores would come back about one question short of passing, even when I was certain I had proved every question I answered correctly.

If it was humiliating to fail once, it was mortifying to have this failure reported to my whole line of management. Then to muster the courage, hope, and diligence to try again and again in the face of what looked like a tyrant holding a carrot on a string, humiliating was anything but an exaggeration.

It was unethical and unreasonable for Epic and CMC to put me through this unreasonable, unfair, insulting, and repeatedly humiliating torment if they never had any honorable intention of having me go through an honorable certification process.

My Coworkers Who Passed Certification

My two coworkers who passed CSM certification did so with a score near mine, and they were regarded brilliant, though they had worked with Epic’s software many more years than I had.

  • Steve passed with a score about one question more than my score.
  • Mark obtained the same score as me, but was given the point.
  • Epic changed the rules, and with scores nearly identical to Mark’s and Steve’s, I was banned from ever being certified.

I had dared to question the fairness of the certification process and was a likely target for retaliation. Furthermore, there was $250,000/year in Good Maintenance discounts riding on my passing or failing the exam.

Since Epic did not require themselves to provide accountability or evidence to support their claim of my passing or failing, they could basically fail me and pocket the $250,000, or use it as leverage to maintain control over our management.

Near Identical Scores

If my scores suggest I could never be a good Cache Systems Manager, then what could be said of my coworkers who obtained scores only about one question better than mine?

Is that a question anyone would have the courage or integrity to answer?

  • Anyone?
  • Without handwaving non-answers?
  • Without huffing and puffing and squirming?
  • Without avoiding?
  • Without ostracizing?
  • Without any other cowardly or issue avoiding incompetence and insincerity and hypocrisy?

CMC Management, I am Waiting

CMC Management, do you even have the capacity to face this issue with competence and courage and integrity?

Or are you still committed to arrogant stupidity and cowardice?

  • I think you’re committed to arrogant stupidity and cowardice.
  • I don’t think you are men or women.
  • I think you embrace excuses–not reasons.
  • I think you are pathetic cowards and liars.

Epic, I am Waiting

I am thankful you called to let me know you reversed your decision to limit exam attempts to five, that you spoke to other customers and found this rule to be unkind and unfair and that you had the goodness of heart to change for the better.

Too bad that it seems a rather phony show given that it may well have been a rule designed to cut me out of certification.

I think it was.

And while I appreciate your call and request to take down this kind of website at the time, I think it was cowardly and self-serving and did not show any integrity at all.

But your integrity or lack thereof is not my only concern or reason for this website.

As I look at your pursuit of the $11,000,000,000 DoD contract and the $5,000,000,000 VA contract, I question the wisdom of companies spending so much money on your product.

  1. Are there no public-domain solutions that are as good and free for downloading?
  2. Have you heard of VistA?
  3. Are the advantages of Epic over VistA really, really, real? Or are they just excuses for blowing millions or billions of dollars?
  4. Are palms being greased to make a stupid and irresponsible purchase?
  5. Are there no healthcare organizations suffering near bankruptcy after having purchased Epic software?
  6. Is vendor lock-in better than liberty to choose one’s consulting among competing companies?
  7. Are the supposed advantages of Epic something that no consulting firm can build into VistA or any other well-tested public-domain offering?
  8. Is this where a sales staff comes in and backstabs their way into companies slandering and eliminating every employee of their prospective customers?
  9. Or is this where bribery or blackmail plays a part in the decision?
  10. Are palms being greased?
  11. Should this be investigated by, say, the FBI or some other authority?
  12. With Veterans struggling to get medical care, should our VA and DoD be blowing billions of dollars on COTS solutions?

I am sure there are answers. And they probably involved slandering people like me to get us out of the way or to get us to shut up.

But you forgot something.

I was already fired at Community Medical Centers.

I am old. I am 66 years old. I am retired. And yet I have a flood of skills in IT, AI, Systems, Databases, website development, and such to the point where I don’t have to work for someone else. I am not sure I even want to do that anymore.

I can be a gadfly where I should be one. I can refuse to back down. And I’ve already laughed in the face of attorneys trying to play on my ordinary legal ignorance.

I don’t live in fear.

And that means I am free to tell the truth whether you like it or not.