EHR Vendor Epic User-Group Meetings Return In-Person After COVID

Epic Systems’ employees will be required to work in-person at the Verona, Wisconsin headquarters at least part time starting in July as the Madison and Dane county COVID-19 restrictions come to an end next week. The EHR vendor also announced it will hold its annual Users Group Meeting (UGM) in-person August 23 through 25 to foster collaboration between its customers.

This will be Epic’s first big meeting held at the Verona campus since August 2019 after conferences were held virtually due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Beginning on July 19, Epic employees will be required to work in-person three days a week, Kristen Dresen, a member of Epic’s administration team, told the Wisconsin State Journal. Come August 1, employees will need to be in the office at least four days a week; on September 1, they will be required to work at the headquarters nine days out of every two weeks.

The plan will be reevaluated after October, Dresen noted.

“It’s a very phased-in, gradual approach,” Dresen said. “We’ve been taking our time to watch vaccination rates, follow the guidelines and be aligned with what public health and others are recommending.”

The company set July 19 as the initial date because administrators had previously said they would give employees four weeks’ notice before requiring them to report to the headquarters, she said.

More than 94 percent of Epic’s employees are partially vaccinated, and over 80 percent are fully vaccinated, according to Dresen. Those who are not fully vaccinated when they return to work will need to wear masks in public spaces and practice social distancing.

This new back-to-work timeline comes after the EHR vendor initially called for employees to return to the office last August.

Some workers anonymously criticized the policy in news reports at the time of its announcement, while others filed complaints with Public Health Madison and Dane County. The health department wrote Epic a letter, calling for it to determine whether it was facilitating remote work “to the greatest extent possible,” as required by the department’s order at the time.

Following this criticism, Epic announced that employees could work from home at least until the end of 2020. After COVID-19 cases surged in Dane County, Wisconsin and the country starting in early September, with the state’s deaths reaching the highest level in December, the company continued to allow employees to work from home into 2021.

As the county’s COVID-19 restrictions end next week, Dresen said most workers are ready to come back to work in-person. “I think a lot of our employees are very excited to return to campus,” she said.

Currently, about 4,000 of Epic’s 9,400 Verona-based employees work in the office on any given weekday voluntarily, Dresen noted.

When asked if some employees might resist the new back-to-work plan, Dresen said, “It’s hard to know. It’s certainly possible. Our plan has been thoughtful. I think we’ll work with staff to make their transition a good one.”

The company set July 19 as the initial timeline because administrators had said they would give employees four weeks’ notice, she said.

In-person attendees of the UGM will need to demonstrate that they have been fully vaccinated, the company added.

The meeting will boost the Madison-area economy, Dresen said, allowing customers the opportunity to collaborate on EHR technology and best practices after COVID-19 brought in-person meetings to a halt.

“It’s really important for our customers to have an opportunity to get together and learn from each other,” Dresen said.