An Odyssey

I think I logged about 2,000 miles this week. It was by car and, therefore, exhausting!

Monday was a crazy, crazy day of meetings where I was trying to catch people between meetings to get things answered and/or accomplished. Several of us (EVOO, Nurse Jackie, Peppermint Patty) have resorted to texting between and even during meetings, to accomplish stuff at all times. As a result, I went over my text allowance by about 150 texts. Not looking forward to this phone bill, even though my blackberry is partially subsidized by work!

Then early Tuesday morning, we all boarded the mega bus to Verona, WI and began our Odyssey. The ride wasn't bad; they sprung for wifi on the bus and I got some work done. We arrived at Verona and were completely shocked at the gorgeous campus of Epic. It's unbelievable...they have these space-age buildings that were decorated by people from Disney. There is only underground parking, so not to clutter the visual landscape. The buildings' interior design reminded me of something you'd actually see at Disney...for example, one of the hallways connecting two buildings was hewn from stone, had vines and snakes hanging from the ceilings, and included sound effects from the huge boulder rolling down the mountain in Indiana Jones movies.

No joke. I wondered how much of Muppetville's money went for the Indiana Jones sound effects?

Other features included a general store, a laundry service, and a center commons based on New York City's Grand Central Station. Oh, and did I mention the tree house they have onsite for retreats?

St. Fozzie's needs a tree house!

Epic draws the youngest and brightest computer programmers and plops them in this amazingly creative landscape to bolster their programmatic creativity. Makes sense, but their average age is about 22. Muppetville's average tenure is 22 years.

Despite my regular soapbox discussions about senior execs not trusting the youngin' population, I found myself skeptical of their experience. Just how much can a 22 year old know about electronic medical records and the challenges facing U.S. hospitals? And just like that, I got a taste of my own medicine. My skepticism of these kids (haha, yes, called them kids) reflects the same hesitance that senior execs showed me when I first joined corporate meetings. We don't trust young, inexperienced people until they prove themselves. I understood a little of this cultural, generational divide.

Can you imagine? A room full of 70 of Muppetville's polished and accomplished execs, in their late 50's and early 60's,, in structured suits, being trained on a $100M software program by a bunch of unkempt, slouching Millenials in their early 20's (wearing wrinkled khakis and flip-flops)?

It was culture shock. Cross-generational culture shock. While the rest of the room was trying to understand the intuitive features of the EMR software, I sat back and watched the generational turf wars.

But enough about that. The training ended, we went to a fancy dinner, and crashed in our hotel rooms. It was a long day...made longer by the text we received from EVOO, that the group of St. Fozzie's folks were meeting for a drink in the bar downstairs.

Knowing I couldn't miss that, I sighed and put my slacks and dress shirt back on. Everyone knows the real business takes place over drinks and on the golf course. Sure enough, some of the senior execs from Muppet corporate were down there and I received great insight into many folks' thoughts, experiences, and perspectives on healthcare reform.

At that point, though, it was midnight and the bus was leaving for Day 2 at 6 a.m.!

Day 2 echoed the first day. While we didn't receive invitations to the tree house, the Epic training continued and Red Bulls were enjoyed by all. The young-khaki-wearing-slouching-Millenials bounded around the room and the execs slugged around the room in a sleep-deprived stupor. We left Epic at noon and made the five hour journey back to Chicagoland...where I promptly returned to my house, took a hot shower, and climbed into bed to watch a movie. The gym and chance at a healthy dinner didn't stand a chance against my exhaustion.