Introduction
Hospitals need the most advanced technological solutions to satisfy the needs of their patients and provide them with high-quality services. There is a connection between the opportunities for medical professionals to save their patient’s lives and the technologies available. Though, in reality, the technological solutions the hospitals in the United States use are far from being advanced. There is the opinion that the legacy system can be satisfactory in some instances because it covers the needs of healthcare specialists and allows the institution to function. This perspective leads to the neglect of technological improvement and development opportunities, which is a negative issue in the public health sector. There is a vital need to move towards more innovative technology in the hospital legacy systems due to their inefficiency, and the Epic system corresponds to the requirements in care coordination.
Discussion
Healthcare informatics is constantly developing due to the need of the medical sphere to adapt to the changing environment. The integration of various types of technologies into the healthcare provision, the need to manage big data sets, and the necessity for standardization of the information make this sphere relevant to all hospitals (Peltonen et al., 2019). The rapid development of technologies related to healthcare explains the appearance of legacy software that is still supported but has yet to be developed by companies. Those hospitals that continue to use these applications face numerous problems connected with their inability to standardize the data and receive adequate results from them (Peltonen et al., 2019). Even such actions as health record integration are connected with challenges when the hospital uses legacy software (Peltonen et al., 2019). It allows us to state that the use of outdated technological solutions makes the work of the hospital more complicated, which distracts the attention of the healthcare providers from patients to solving issues with the software.
The two problems of the hospital legacy systems are their inability to respond to changes and overall inefficiency. These two issues are interconnected, which determines the need for changing them for more technologically innovative and modern solutions. The legacy system defines outdated software and hardware that is still used in the company (Reid et al., 2021). This term is universal in IT, and it is also applied to the healthcare sphere. The hospital software develops with time and adapts better to the needs of the medical staff and patients (Reid et al., 2021). Their interface becomes more user-friendly, its security level increases and the options available for hospital employees increase when they use the most updated, not legacy technologies (Reid et al., 2021). In addition, legacy systems have problems with the support of the developers, which increases the challenges the employees face in completing these tasks.
The fundamental solution to the problems of inefficiency and inability to respond to the needs of the healthcare setting is introducing a unified and technologically modern system in the hospital. For instance, it is possible to substitute multiple applications used in the hospital by the cross-enterprise system for healthcare institutions called Epic. First, it is optional to support different legacy applications in the healthcare setting, including the registration program, the application with the patient’s health history, and other necessary programs (Noble et al., 2021). Second, there are no issues connected with using the programs in various operational systems (Noble et al., 2021). Third, the employees do not have to adapt to the new software and interface when they change their place of work because most healthcare institutions use the Epic system (Noble et al., 2021). These advantages of the software explain the need to substitute legacy software with Epic.
The last issue is the opportunity for healthcare providers to work with big data, a necessary component of healthcare research. It is possible to illustrate this point with the following lines from the article:
This review study unveils that there needs to be more information on evidence of real-world use of Big Data analytics in healthcare. This is because the usability studies have considered only the qualitative approach, which describes potential benefits but does not consider the quantitative study. Also, the majority of the studies were from developed countries, which brings out the need for the promotion of research on Healthcare Big Data analytics in developing countries (Mehta & Pandit, 2018, p. 65)
This expert emphasizes that big data is primarily available from developed countries. It is possible to explain this hypothesis with the prevalence of unified modern technological solutions like Epic in most hospitals in the United States. This system allows the specialists to obtain and preserve the health data about their patients in one place, facilitating subsequent research on topics related to healthcare. It allows the assumption that using technologies like Epic instead of legacy software with no unified database promotes research in the medical sphere.
Therefore, the Epic system is the software system for healthcare institutions that provides hospitals with unified and technologically modern decisions in informational technologies. According to the estimates, almost 80% of hospitals in the United States use this system, which makes it the obvious solution to the problem of legacy hospital software (Reid et al., 2021). Its presence in the international market is comparatively low, and only 3% of healthcare institutions use it (Reid et al., 2021). At the same time, the dominant position in the American market determines the preference for the hospital that uses legacy software.
The Epic system has specific problems that complicate its use regardless of its positive sides. It is possible to emphasize the price of the system, which is comparatively high. Large medical centers and organizations with thousands of patients monthly use it. It determines the program’s complex functions because it should satisfy the needs of all departments in the large healthcare institution (Sergi, 2022). For example, it is actively used in anatomic pathology and laboratory settings due to the variety of functions the software proposes to the users (Sergi, 2022). At the same time, private and small healthcare institutions, including hospitals and laboratories, only need some functions presented in the Epic system. However, they still have to pay for them because there are no flexible software options that depend on the size of the healthcare institution (Epstein et al., 2021). It allows the assumption that specific issues require more attention from the side developers of the Epic hospital software.
The suggested solution to the problem of the program’s complexity and high price problem is the product’s diversification. The company developing and supporting the Epic system might work on creating software that corresponds to the needs of smaller enterprises. For instance, the limited number of options is the solution because this version will cost less and will not provide any unnecessary options for the hospitals. Thus, the healthcare institution should have the opportunity to choose from the list of options they need from Epic and pay only for them to reduce corporate costs. It will be justified from the financial point of view and will be significantly better compared to the support of the legacy software.
The end goal of the Epic system is to provide a structured technological solution for managing big data in healthcare. It is challenging due to the significant number of patients and the need to operate with their private data (Epstein et al., 2021). Implementing the Epic system is essential in managing the clinical data about all people who visit the hospital, the physicians and the nurses who work with them, and the medical services provided to the patients (Epstein et al., 2021). This information is crucial in coordinating care because some patients have complications, and their treatment data should be available to professionals with various specializations.
The peculiar detail is connected with the ways the Epic system deals with health outcomes when they happen at home. It is necessary to note that home care is increasing exponentially for hospitals because of the changing healthcare context. Many people prefer to receive medical services at home, and these opportunities have increased in recent years. As a result, nurses and physicians who work with patients at their homes should have the opportunity to access the hospital software on their devices. For example, the Epic software should be compatible with the laptop or smartphone that the healthcare professional takes to the patient (Iqbal et al., 2021). This opportunity is the essential advantage of a unified hospital system like Epic compared to the legacy software that supposes various non-compatible and unsupported applications.
Conclusion
Healthcare informatics is connected with the number of peculiarities that aim at optimizing the provision of medical services to patients. The technological solutions for the hospitals should satisfy the needs of the institutions in the storage of big data sets and their management. No need to say that these tasks require particular functions from the software, including their effectiveness in operating with serious sets of information and the speed of processing the data. In addition, hospital software requires technological support and unification, which is impossible in the case of legacy software that supposes the use of various applications that are not developed at the moment.
Epic is an effective solution to the problem of managing data in healthcare. The major issue is the dominant position of this technological solution in the American healthcare system. It means that most hospitals and laboratories use this software, which leads to the unification of the format of data gathering, and the easy way to share this information. In addition, Epic provides various options for healthcare institutions, which allows the hospitals to satisfy their diverse needs in working with patients. In all cases, Epic is the modern and technologically developed solution for the hospital that has more advantages compared to the support of the legacy software.
References
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