Hi Dani,
I recently accepted a position as a Epic Willow pharmacist in the IT dept.
My background: pharmacist, certified medical technologist, 3 yrs experience with Meditech/Misys, and 3 years with Epic Beaker, Willow, and Beacon with Super User experience prior to go-live. Recruiter contact/request for project management position at Epic.
The new position that I am entering into is something new for me, but one I am passionate about learning as I love a challenge and to learn/teach. I also enjoy learning about programming and have been learning about programming languages on my own.
Question: what is it like on the build and maintenance end for you; i.e.: do you use code similar to programming languages such as JavaScript, Python, etc to do your job?
I like to learn as much as I can in addition to what I will learn on-the-job and at training. Thanks in advance for any insight.
Hi Melissa,
First off, congratulations on your new position! Get ready for a “wild” ride, and of course I mean that in the best possible way 😉
I can tell from your varied background and experience why you’d make a good Epic Willow pharmacist, as I’ve said before on the blog, contrary to what lots of people say about doing many different things in your career, it IS a good thing and employers view that as a type of flexibility that means you’re easily adaptable to change, and that’s always a plus in the eyes of any employer.
In response to your specific question, the language of Epic software, at least what you’ll be working on, is nothing like JavaScript, Python, Ruby on Rails, PHP, etc. Epic is it’s own thing altogether and they do a really good job of teaching and training you how to build their software from the ground up. after building it i.e. implementation, you move into the maintenance phase and Epic assigns you (they assign all their clients actually) a permanent technical support person (not a call center number mind you, but an actual person assigned to you), to teach you the ropes of maintaining the software.
Initially you’ll rely very heavily on your Epic-assigned technical support staff person but as time goes by, and without your realizing it, you will start to learn and pick up so much information that you’ll be self-sustaining for the most part and eventually only need your personal Epic support person for the really major technical problems.
You’ll definitely be learning on the job, there’s no way around that when it comes to Epic but the resources they provide to help you along are phenomenal.