Look! Up in the sky! It's a space shuttle! It's a school! It's a farm! It's a museum! It's Epic!
Epic System's new corporate headquarters in Verona, Wisconsin sparks the imagination and challenges software development companies to think outside the cubicle world when it comes to the development of electronic medical record (EMR) systems.
At this year's Expert Group Meeting (XGM), Epic's campus was as much of an attraction to the over 600 participants from 193 healthcare companies across 44 states and 3 countries as the conference itself. Sitting on 1,000 acres of farm land in Verona, about a 30 minute drive from Madison, the Epic farm as it is fondly called is a showpiece in and of itself.
Designed in a spaceship-like configuration, Epic's learning center is made up of three main halls: Voyager, Epicenter, and Deep Space. Each hall transports visitors to a different world. In Voyager Hall we admired artwork from Indiana Jones' Lost Ark, the Greatest Show on Earth, an Epic Trek and 007. In Epicenter we strolled past images of the Wild Wild West and rocked it with Elvis and the Beatles. My favorite was the caves of Deep Space where we explored rock, cave, dirt, magma, and sky layers of planet earth.
In its enormous hallways, every nook and cranny is filled with artwork that titillates and teases the imagination. On a tour of the campus, my colleagues and I were taken through halls decorated to look like everything from New York's Times Square to jungles of Africa.
There were conference rooms overlooking duck ponds and waterfalls and halls designed to look like heaven. There was a door to hell too, but our tour guide whisked us right past it.
The XGM offered sessions on a wide range of topics including demos on Epic's newest software. Also offered were presentations on e-learning, distance learning, and traditional classroom training methods. Judging by the buzz in the dining halls and training rooms, the XGM was a huge success.
My guess is that even more Epic customers will be wowed at Epic's User Group Meeting (UGM) which is usually held in the Fall.
