Furore's involvement in the Epic implementation at Insel Gruppe in Switzerland

'In 2021, I got in touch with people from Insel Gruppe,' says Richard. 'They asked if I could advise them on the possibilities regarding Epic. One thing led to another, and now their initial inquiry has evolved into an implementation project involving more than forty direct and indirect colleagues. This is the largest number of Epic experts we have ever collaborated with on an implementation, so it's quite remarkable.'

Employees from around the world 

Richard explains that Insel Gruppe was required to issue a tender. 'We won that, along with two other companies, and now the majority of the Epic team on this project is from Furore. Additionally, we work with a handful of freelancers, and I've also established partnerships with Tegria in the US and Cloud21 in the UK. Through this setup, we are collaborating with individuals contributing remotely from around the world. We have consultants in the US and the UK, and trough this extended network people are logging in from Finland, Sweden, Germany, and various other places.'

 When asked about the potential challenges of managing different languages and time zones, Richard acknowledges the complexity. 'Certainly, it's a challenge to streamline everything. But it's especially exciting to work in a different culture and organizational structure. Financing is different, billing is different, the language is different... Yet, in the end, a hospital is still a hospital. Whether you have a heart problem in Dutch or German, the diagnosis and treatment should be the same, ideally.'

Pragmatism and realism 

At first glance, it may seem unusual for a Swiss hospital to hire a Dutch IT company for an EHR implementation in a foreign language. Richard explains that it's a matter of supply: 'In Switzerland, there's no company comparable to Furore. Moreover, in such large-scale implementations, there's often a mismatch between ambition and competence: ambition needs to decrease, and competence needs to increase. This is achieved through pragmatism and realism, and we have a lot of that at Furore. We will start difficult conversations, we will advice to be pragmatic and we help employees make the right choices every day.'

Setting priorities 

According to Richard, these "right choices" mostly involve setting priorities. 'The old system had a lot of data that needed to be migrated to the new system, and the landscape of external applications was vast, requiring a lot of integration work. Insel Gruppe didn't have much experience with that, and after a few months, they realized they needed support.'

This is where Furore came in, and the consultants could share their expertise. 'Not just on the technical side, but also in terms of planning and priorities. It's very valuable when someone in such a large project can say, 'Hey, you don't need to worry about this right now. This will come up in three months.'

Challenges of remote work 

On average, Furore's team visits Bern every six weeks. 'It's a beautiful city; the old town is even listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, so it's definitely not a punishment," laughs Richard. "But it's especially nice to be able to collaborate in person again. It's just easier when you're sitting next to each other, even across teams.'

Richard mentions that while it's fantastic that most of this project can be done remotely, remote work also has its downsides. 'We have much less direct contact with end users. That responsibility now lies mostly with Insel Gruppe's team. They gather information and ensure decisions are made, and then someone from our team processes those decisions into the system. It's not always convenient, especially when the system is in German. But on the other hand, without our help, this project wouldn't be where it is now, so on our side, it's a matter of adjusting expectations.'

Making an impact 

When asked if he's proud of this project, Richard nods immediately. 'Yes, very proud. We're doing important work that stays close to the content, and when that succeeds on this scale, both in terms of the number of employees and the content, I consider that very special.'

He continues, 'When you hire Furore, you get people who are truly committed. We all want to make an impact and have a passion for what we do in Healthcare IT. Maybe we're not solving world problems, but at our level, we're contributing to making healthcare better, more efficient, faster, cheaper, and smarter, both nationally and internationally. And that never gets boring. Epic is expanding its market in Europe; we, along with our partners, are ready to deploy our Epic expertise in all these wonderful projects.'