Epic is also built on top of MUMPS or 'M' as they call it. Epic uses a document database called Cache as its backend. The GUI is a web frontend.

Allscripts uses a subset of an obscure language called Arden Syntax. It is kind of like JavaScript but can do far less programmatically and often times will break the OO mold in weird ways. But, at least you can extend a Sunrise build as opposed to an Epic build which is virtually static.

I am currently working with an EMR built on top of a CRM tool. Talk about something that is a f'ed up. Oh baby jeebus, why!!!

I'll second this.

Having worked on an Epic migration (Inpatient and Outpatient), I can say that Epic is a frigging mess. Massively expensive, almost totally inflexible by design, crap reporting (love reporting against a document database for up to the minute data), confusing to use and even more confusing to modify.

Epic training in no way covers how you will actually use the product.

Don't get me started on the Epic employees. Virtually every employee that came on-site was fresh out of college and only had the experience of the Epic boot camp to fall back on.

It was a very frustrating experience working with Epic (the company) and Epic (the software).

I live in Little Rock and can only dream about having reliable power.
The area where I grew up in the 70's lost power for > 5 minutes 2-3 times/month.
The area that I now live in loses power for > 1 minute at least monthly.
We get 6+ hour power loss at least quarterly if not more frequently.

We are 500+ miles from the ocean.
During Katrina, we were without power for 8 days and to pile more shit on us, the refugees swarmed us and the crime rate had a massive surge which took years to bring down.
The next tropical storm/Hurricane (I can't remember its name) that came through after Katrina knocked out our power for 10 days.
If it snows, we know we are fucked. Expect a multi-day outage with any snowfall over 4 inches.

What we see here is 1) indifference to the customer (what recourse do you have against a government monopoly?) and 2) unwillingness to spend money for tree clearing and other preventative actions.

So much truth here.

I was recently part of a 'major' Epic rollout at a large hospital where we replaced virtually every system with an Epic equivalent. I was involved in the IT department and we were moving from our current EMR vendor to Epic..

The Epic classes, while interesting, in no way prepared us for the work that we needed to do to build Epic inpatient/outpatient/ER/Radiology etc. to match the functionality of the current EMR. We were supposed to 'learn on the job'. .

The Epic employees sent to us to assist with the conversion were almost all fresh out of college and virtually none had worked on a competitor EMR to Epic conversion. A majority of the Epic employees we interacted with could not answer basic questions without using what we dubbed the 'Cult of Epic' speak (where they say lots of great things about Epic, but never answer the question). We later found out that we were the training for most of these Epic employees..

To call it a cluster fuck would be a vast understatement.

I had a long list of items that the previous EMR could do that Epic could not do.
We asked Epic how to customize the application (mostly orders) to add in the missing functionality and the usual response was 'we will have to build it for you'. They were more than happy to send us a quote for building new functionality or modifying existing functionality. To bad the quote was ungodly expensive and the timeframe for implementation was FUCKING YEARS. So, we went live with a massively expensive product (think totally cost including consultants, product, training of 100 million dollars), that was slower than the EMR we were using and was missing lots of functionality that we used to have.

Other things to complain about:
1. Database structure: Epic runs on AIX with a object (document) database backend called Cache.
Very slow to query data on, so there are a series of ETL processes that copy the object data into a SQL Server or Oracle database. Doesn't sound too bad? Wrong!! The Epic supplied ETL tool (Clarity Compass I believe) is not robust and neither is the ETL process that Epic uses. You are very limited in the number of ETL's that you can run in a given timeframe. What this means is that some data goes through ETL nightly, while some is weekly or monthly. This can mean that your reporting database (SQL Server or Oracle) has data elements that can be wildly out of date.

2. Reporting: Since you cannot use a traditional reporting tool (crystal, ssrs) to query the document database, Epic built a tool called 'Reporting Workbench' to build reports with. This tool is only used for pulling small amounts of data that is immediately useful. No trending data or historical data. I didn't work with this tool very much, but what I did find out was that it is very limited. Basically, you can only query pre-built items using templates that Epic built. If you want to add new data elements or change the way things look then you need to either be an expert with the tools they use to build the items or ask Epic to build it for you for a fee.
To view trending or historical data, you need to go to the SQL Server/Oracle database (see point 1 above) to get your data.
BIG ISSUE: if you need to build ssrs/crystal type reports that contain historical and current data (data up to yesterday at midnight), you quite simply can't do it. You have to build 2 reports (1 historical off of relational DB and 1 current data off of reporting workbench) and have the client live with 2 reports in two different formats.
Yeah, not very good at all.

Sorry for the bitch session.
I no longer work with Epic and I am so much happier.

I am one of those people. We are stuck on IE 9 and won't be moving anytime soon. I work at a VERY security aware entity who have everything locked down, but they will only let us use IE 9. We are allowed to use unapproved software or hardware, but have to get the approval of the CIO which is beyond difficult to get.

Are you sure your S40 was made in the US? I thought all 1995-2004 S/V 40's were made in Holland at a Mitsubishi plant. I know that the S/V40 was the same car as a Mitsubishi vehicle sold in Europe and that they were built at the same plant. IMHO, I think that being part Mitsubishi was the cause of most of your issues. I have known many people with Mitsubishi's (and Mitsubishi sourced engines in Chrysler products) and every single one of the vehicles has had issues ranging from pieces of the car falling off, very poor fit and finish, electronics acting 'funny', brakes that failed and engines that were burning/leaking oil by 60,000 miles. I had a 1995 850 wagon (base model) and it was very reliable mechanically. The A/C unit did need to be replaced every 4-5 years though. I can't see myself buying a new Volvo until the new Geely Volvo's reliability is proven over the next 10 or so years.

Um...WOW...really? My feet were clear of the brake and gas pedals, but close enough to hit the brakes if needed. To answer another question that I bet someone had. Cruise control was not in use on any of the occasions that the car decided to accelerate on its own.

Established by whom? I had a Pontiac Vibe (Toyota Matrix which is based on the Toyota Corolla) with an automatic transmission and 1.8L engine and it 'suddenly accelerated' a few times before I got rid of it after 1 year of ownership because I was scared to let anyone drive the car. Pontiac and Toyota told me the sudden acceleration was because of a floor mat. There was no floor mat on the driver side of my car nor was there anything that could 'grab' the accelerator pedel. Pontiac and Toyota told me I was stamping on the gas instead of the brake. Funny, while driving my car would just take off and I could have my feet nowhere near the brake or gas pedals and the car would keep on accelerating. The brakes COULD stop the car, but if I let off the brakes the car would still take off. The way I took care of the issue was by moving the selector from drive to neutral and back to drive. Sometimes I had to do this a few times for the car to go back to normal operation. Not really very good for the transmission or engine. Pontiac and Toyota refused to listen to anything I had to say and basically told me 'sucks to be you, now please go away'. I have zero interest in ever purchasing anything made by Toyota again. I don't purchase anything made by GM either, but that is because most of their cars are poorly designed pieces of sh$t based on family experience from the late 70's to 2011. My extended family just can't learn from their mistakes.

I worked at Acxiom a few years back and I was amazed and disturbed by the amount and level of detail of information that they have on just about everyone.