Off to see the wizards to solve the world’s food supply (and telehealth) Updated: 05/02/2022
Over the years I have observed success - Walmart
" No one buys a Lamborghini to drive to Walmart! Really"? (second Walmart store opened in Harrison, Arkansas in 1964.) Personally chosen by Sam Walton - quoted later on how important its success was to the Walmart of today.
and failure - Google Fiber,
" Will Google Fiber ever be a threat to pay TV? Not Really!" (Toured their first project in Kansas City, August 2012).
and wrote about them along with those less famous.
My interest and recent visit to the EPIC Systems campus came directly from my grandson's invitation. My grandson successfully competed on Teen Jeopardy, and graduated with high honors from Duke with a Biomedical Engineering Degree prior to joining EPIC. Proving there are jobs for children who play computer games (professionally).
OK there's a bit of "follow the yellow brick road" before finding success and happiness (with telehealth in America).
Updated: 05/02/2022 - Due to recent effects of the world's food supply by war in Ukraine the priorities are changing.
Note: 60 Minutes
and CNBC
So I now point to my current project (something that can be replicated by states, nationally, and globally)
Here's my latest project!
Agriculture is?the main source of national income for most developing countries, and US rural areas. American agriculture benefits from world trade.
U.S. Department of Agriculture is delivering on its promise to expand markets by investing $1 billion in partnerships to support America’s climate-smart farmers, ranchers and forest landowners. The new?Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities?opportunity will finance pilot projects that create market opportunities for U.S. agricultural and forestry products that use climate-smart practices and include innovative, cost-effective ways to measure and verify greenhouse gas benefits. USDA is now accepting project applications for fiscal year 2022.
Looking for partners. Lot of "mental" heavy lifting required. Real world experience and success required. The Ozarks can become the next rural Silicon Valley gold rush! Lot of key players already in place -
Telehealth, Health Institute (Alice Walton / Walmart), remote living and
working with access to world class mecca of outdoor activities and facilities (Johnny Morris / Bass Pro) , telehealth / education / economic development
via telecommunications (Elon Musk / Spacelink / Starlink),
Agriculture (Tysons) for starters.
Others:
UAMS
Winrock International
Washington Regional Medical System
Cleveland Clinic
J.B. Hunt Transport Services
Amazon
Walmart
Target
Jack Henry Banking
All the key areas of health, education, agriculture, transportation, banking, finance, economic development, and quality of life are covered.
Next "gold rush"? Technology -blockchain / cryptocurrency is the Holy Grail for global commodity trading - grain, poultry, beef, and pork. Not if, but when! (Similar to Benjamin in the Graduate hearing that it was all about plastic for the older crowd, and Uber and Airbnb for the younger).
Pilot project that can be replicated regionally, by state, nationally, and globally.
I'm very familiar with how to take a rural business global.
Brief family history
I grew up in a family business in the Ozarks where quality of life was based on being cross-trained, and specialization not an option. Great customer experience was key to the quality of your next meal (figuratively and literally). As far as education, I attended a public school, Valley Springs, and became street smart way too early. I played on a state basketball championship, and was Valedictorian. Attended a National Science Foundation program, where I competed successfully against other students across the country in math (top 3). Changed major at University of Arkansas from Engineering to Mathematics. Note: I had to take a remedial English class on entry. The challenges of attending a small public school in rural America. Message "Don't underestimate my persistence" to the digitally challenged.
Disclosure: I was on MyChart by Epic today (04/22/22) discussing upcoming spinal cord stimulator procedure with my doctor at UAMS. So my experience with telemedicine is both professional and personal. Today it saved 5 hours roundtrip to UAMS. Meeting went smoothly.
Grandson grew up in a different era and location, parents with professional careers, so he was able to focus more on his personal interests. He attended a private school and won many Quiz Bowl awards, paramount was his success on Teen Jeopardy.
He was valedictorian, making a memorable speech (low key sense of humor); and had his choice of colleges. Picking Duke. Message "Don't underestimate him based on his genteel approach". Personally his speech struck a nerve about underestimating people and businesses (start-ups, EPIC, CUO, etc.). 2016 LRCA Graduation Speech Always worth a revisit each year around graduation. See how chicken or egg question still has relevance in my discourse.
Areas of my common interests with EPIC:
"Approximately 60 million Americans live in rural communities, and the nearly 20% of Americans who depend on rural health systems have less access to care than those living in urban areas.[1],[2]?This disparity in healthcare access is linked to poorer health outcomes including higher rates of preventable deaths from cancer, heart disease, COPD, and stroke, and the gap has only worsened with the pandemic as patients find it harder to get care within their own communities.[3]"
Why EPIC and my early assessments
EPIC caught my attention, since rural America Telehealth (broadband) needs something (and someone) to help champion its cause. Leaving it up to the government (rural broadband) has been an unmitigated disaster; and personally and professionally I've become time challenged!
My assessment is much of the organic growth from rural broadband will come from services - education, telework, Telehealth, medical and businesses attempting bi-directionally to reach new labor and market opportunities.
Big mistake is taking the "Field of Dreams" approach, "build and they will come". A lot of money has been spent leading people to broadband but then that didn't make them "think". Point is building bridges to nowhere is worthless, besides costing the tax payer again (and again). Yogi Berra "It's like Deja-vu, all over again". Unfortunately there has been too much building digital bridges to nowhere.
Use of broadband for online education, online business, getting best prices, finding best jobs, and how to sell your products and/or services. How to get low cost medical assistance, telehealth, telemedicine, and monitor lifestyle. Many health issues can now be monitored and avoided through non-intrusive motion based systems, avoiding video and audio personal privacy issues through Internet of Things (IoT) broadband devices. Families with elderly parents, or relatives with disabilities living remotely (across town or country) are alerted real-time when established lifestyle variances (falls) occur via their smartphones.
Hospital level care from the comfort of your home, particularly for the rural and underserved markets.
Much of the fascination of rural broadband has been unfortunately lost on inorganic growth - "Field of Dreams". Inorganic will come from business professionals placing a higher priority on "quality of life", or "finding their beach". Moving to rural areas from urban confinement created by the pandemic.?Digital nomads are a different animal. Make sure you do your research. Determine your community assets and market them. Could be economics, reduced cost of living, outdoor lifestyle, close to lakes or rivers, no crime, great schools, golf courses, fishing, museums, entertainment, sports, research, etc. Remember social media liabilities will override your communities best effort to mask them!
Always look for leapfrog technologies to expedite broadband opportunities.
Remember tangible value must be seen immediately!
Not many state master plans will lead you to believe it. Filled with caveats!
Mainly spending a lot of money with no guaranteed results! For their plan and execution of them. Even a recent state master plan has failed to mention telehealth, only a few vague references to telemedicine. Buried in the plan was "Time is of the essence. The need for broadband to support work-from-home, distance-learning, and telemedicine is critical now".
"Time is of the essence" with no timetables is worthless, along with "critical now". Hard to be genteel in my assessment, I'm more of a smash mouth, in your face reviewer.
For those disbelievers, peruse the following plan.
There is nothing so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all. - Peter Drucker (EpicShare)
Update 04/23/2022 "The governor also announced that Arkansas will have a record-breaking $1 billion surplus by June, saying there are several options to use the money, including funding for broadband development, tax relief for Arkansans and school facilities in the state. The last estimate before Friday’s reveal was $600 million.
Over 210,000 households in the state lack broadband. Hutchinson says half of those are covered by federal funding and it would cost the state $500 million to cover the remaining households.
In whichever direction the funds go, it would still have to be approved by the legislature."
Opinion - Big mistake spending funds to check a box for political purposes. Particularly when recommendations are biased and slanted for fiber. Unfortunately master plans, funded by the government, are controlled by consultants, who have used (fiber) lobbyists to get their contract. What could go wrong! Again, and again?
Again check my article on Lone Wolf Howling in the Wind
There are people who have successfully solved problems much more efficiently and at much less cost than the government and its creation of another "master plan". Today many are convinced rural broadband is the panacea. Reality it is only an enabler.?For those digitally impaired TELEHEALTH creates the justified need.
I sold (and installed) technology in over 50 countries before "commercial Internet" from the Ozarks. Explained "how" later in my article "Capitalizing on the Global Telecom Perfect Storm".
Brief history of EPIC
CBS Sunday Morning February 23rd, 2020 video
Visit to EPIC campus at Verona Wisconsin
EPIC is located on a 1,000 acre campus in Verona , Wisconsin, with at least 28 office buildings and 11,000 employees.
Architects from Microsoft and Disney have been involved with the layout and wide range of movie themes. "There is a Harry Potter themed building. An Alice in Wonderland building. A Wizard of Oz building. A fairy tale building. A farm building. And so much more!"?
No building has more than two flights of stairs. Lot of underground parking and connecting tunnels. Everyone has a private office.
EPIC office new (to me) no bookcases or file cabinets? Correct! I ask where the brains are (hardware) and felt it might have been taken as an insult. Hardware actually in the cloud and hidden in a mysterious underground location. I started back in the 60's when there was a mainframe occupying a large room with strict environmental controls. Hard to find where the actual sausage is made at EPIC. Smaller companies are personified by hand-to-hand, in your face, combat. Lot of dirt and grime (blood and guts) in offices.
About 25% of employees come from inside state, and about 75% outside of state. No surprise there is a smaller percentage from the South.
Where's the golf course on the campus? Asking for a friend.
Age range is between 20-35 years for a high percentage of employees. Willing to work 60 hour weeks, and at the same time be well compensated.
EPIC is privately and employee-owned. In order to ensure the company remains private, Ms. Faulkner created a charitable foundation that her stock will go into and allow the company to remain privately held. The foundation is called the EPIC Heritage Foundation.
OK - hard to accept they can be trained to provide great customer experience. Most in that age group are rarely willing to accept blame and responsibility, and are more likely to go into a defense mode. Talk and not listen! So I'll listen and not talk to find out.
Transitioning between art and life, and life to art.
Uncovering the mysteries of life
From EpicShare
Judy, You Never Get It Right
April 04, 2022
When EPIC had a staff of about 300 people, we held our monthly staff meetings in a nearby theatre.?Popcorn and soda were served, giving it a festive feeling.
We had outgrown the Tokay building, a lovely old schoolhouse, and we were just beginning to design the buildings for the campus in Verona. The hard question was “How big do we build the auditorium?” I asked the staff: 600? 1,000? 1,200? Voices shouted back “Five Thousand!” Then one lone voice shouted out, "Judy, you never get it right!”
We built the auditorium, Epicenter, for 5,000 people and later expanded it to 6,000. When we outgrew that, we built a second auditorium, Deep Space, for 11,400 people. We're outgrowing that, but we are not going to build an auditorium for 22,000.
I’m thankful for that one lone voice.
Wow! I missed the Deep Space in my tour!
My personal and business comparisons (and contrasts) to Judy Faulkner and EPIC
Since I started a company in the middle part of the country too, I always like to compare for the benefit of others (start-ups, etc.).
Obviously location became an important advantage (and in my case a disadvantage) for developing a technology company. My location selection was made initially more for personal reasons than professional. However there was a two edged sword in location, since it created my cable TV opportunities. Although later there were solid reasons to move the company.
Madison has (and had) some great city planners. Unmatched integration of governmental, medical, professional, educational, commercial, and residential properties.
In my recent visit I was able to stay at a Madison hotel with a great view of the lake, the capitol, and eat at some great restaurants.
Most capitol cities I have visited are as disorganized as unplanned marriages, and contested divorces. Lot of prenuptial agreements missing. As well as ground rules for in-laws and outlaws overstaying their welcome.
Innovation and creativity abound in Madison, robots roaming with little attention (except for visitors like me to the area):
My story has been captured in following article:
My story is different, famed essayist and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson reminds us that you’re not in a race: Life doesn’t provide us with any drama in how it ends. And those that are obsessed with the end results are often blinded to the sheer wonder that is provided during the journey.
My journey includes international suspense, CIA, KGB, billionaires, criminals, sex, financial maneuvering, backstabbing, banks, and international leaders. None fictional, and most yet to meet movie stardom. On business trips, always allow time to enjoy the local culture. “You got to Stop and Smell the roses. You’ve got to count your many blessings everyday".
In the 1980's I contacted national and state consultants. One in DC talked with several of my cable installations. I got glowing reviews. He called those cable owners, evangelists. He contacted local bankers, and there was no interests in financial support of a technology company. It was all about physical assets (cars and cows). The recommendation was to move to another location. I think all technology companies should look at how EPIC and Verona work together (Appendix A). Part of finding your beach! Might note if you pay a consultant for advice, might want to take it!
Starting to look more like a Harvard business case on business success, less success, and failure; all for different environments and resulting decisions forced and unforced.
My location is unfortunately a story of missed opportunities. FSLIC crisis had a major impact in the late 1980's. Currently it's about local leaders' ambivalence toward the Klan. I've written several articles on this subject, with no results. An attitude I totally misjudged.
Billions lost! Well documented why the area is relegated to mainly lower paying blue collar jobs!
EPIC Moves
EPIC made some "epic" moves with the support of state of Wisconsin and Verona Community. I've seen something similar by the Mormons in Utah, as far as less populated states. See Appendix A.
Cleveland Clinic => EPIC => Alice Walton Foundation => Whole Health Institute Connecting the dots.
EPIC FOUNDER AND CEO JUDY FAULKNER?: We’ve also developed a portal with Cleveland Clinic that we call Care Companion, and that allows our health systems to send patients home with the software on the portal so that the software itself helps educate the patient, helps direct the patients what to do and alerts the health system if the health system needs to step in.
Alice Walton and Crystal Bridges CBS Sunday Morning 04/24/2022
Alice L. Walton Foundation and Cleveland Clinic
announced a joint initiative to identify ways of providing access to Cleveland Clinic’s renowned specialty care services in Northwest Arkansas. Wouldn’t the easiest way to do that be to build a Cleveland Clinic in Northwest Arkansas? Can you address that theory or discuss how feasible that is during the next decade?
Our initiative is currently in an assessment phase — we’re evaluating our region’s specialty care needs, and then we’ll determine how we can best meet those needs. It’s premature to offer any opinions on how to provide services until the assessments are complete.
How transformative can Whole Health Institute (WHI) be to the region, and to Arkansas? And not just WHI, but the medical school as well? Can Northwest Arkansas become a nationally known medical center?
I believe we have a huge opportunity to be a catalyst for change, with Northwest Arkansas at the epicenter of a grassroots whole health movement. The Institute is working closely with professionals in our region, convening and connecting partners in the whole health space, training individuals who can then train others, and serving as a resource for life-long education.
Whole Health’s sister organization, Whole Health School of Medicine and Health Sciences, will be a degree-granting nonprofit school. The medical school will help students rise to the health challenges of the 21st century through a reimagination of American medical education that incorporates whole health to help people live healthier and happier lives. The curriculum will combine traditional and conventional medicine with integrative techniques based on whole health principles.
I know you want and have a strong commitment to make Whole Health accessible and affordable to all people in every community. For people ready to try this out, is it as simple as making an appointment at the institute? Similar to a “doctor’s” appointment?
The Whole Health Institute doesn’t function as a doctor’s office. Rather, we offer resources for individuals and work directly with health professionals, medical systems, business and community leaders, and others to integrate a whole health approach.
For someone who is interested in exploring how a whole health approach can transform their life, we encourage taking an Introduction to Whole Health or Taking Charge course, which are both free at?wholehealth.org. There are also self-reflection tools, videos and more materials as well as classes specifically designed for clinicians, kids, and others located on the resource page. Currently, most of the offerings are virtual and once the building opens in 2023, more classes or other in-person experiences will be available onsite.
Goals and Vision
My goal is to work with companies to provide an implementation path for futuristic ideas and partners to expedite the urgency.
My vision which I see much clearer after visit to Madison, Verona, and EPIC :
Adding EPIC to all the key players in place (geographically). Amazing all the common interests and traits:
领英推荐
Here's my latest project!
U.S. Department of Agriculture is delivering on its promise to expand markets by investing $1 billion in partnerships to support America’s climate-smart farmers, ranchers and forest landowners. The new?Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities?opportunity will finance pilot projects that create market opportunities for U.S. agricultural and forestry products that use climate-smart practices and include innovative, cost-effective ways to measure and verify greenhouse gas benefits. USDA is now accepting project applications for fiscal year 2022.
Looking for partners. Lot of "mental" heavy lifting required. Real world experience and success required. The Ozarks can become the next rural Silicon Valley gold rush! Lot of key players already in place -
Telehealth, Health Institute (Alice Walton / Walmart), remote living and
working with access to world class mecca of outdoor activities and facilities (Johnny Morris / Bass Pro) , telehealth / education / economic development
via telecommunications (Elon Musk / Spacelink / Starlink),
Agriculture (Tysons) for starters.
All the key areas of health, education, agriculture, economic development, handling epidemic impact, and quality of life will be covered.
Agriculture is?the main source of national income for most developing countries, and US rural areas. American agriculture benefits from world trade.
Next "gold rush"? Technology -blockchain / cryptocurrency is the Holy Grail for global commodity trading - grain, poultry, beef, and pork. Not if, but when! (Similar to Benjamin in the Graduate hearing that it was all about plastic for the older crowd, and Uber and Airbnb for the younger). Pilot project that can be replicated regionally, by state, nationally, and globally.
I'm very familiar with how to take a rural business global.
All in a 100 mile corridor of the Ozarks. From Crystal Bridges to Big Cedar.
From Bentonville to Branson. Includes world championship golf courses, several lakes, and Buffalo National River. Mecca for sportsmen, and women.
Eureka Springs "Little Switzerland of America"?because of its mountains and Victorian buildings, floating on the Buffalo National River celebrating its 50th year, A Wilderness Retreat at?Big Cedar Lodge. Designed with the?Adirondack?Mountains in mind, and numerous lakes.
“First River: How Arkansas Saved a National Treasure” presents the history of the Buffalo National River from the 1960s to the present day. The film identifies the people and organizations that stopped the plans to dam the river and achieved the designation of the Buffalo River as America’s first National River.
Additional background information on plan
Published on February 3, 2021
"Holistic pieces are falling in place for the Ozarks to become the?premier health care, technology, and outdoor destination.?Similar to what Silicon Valley did for tech and innovation, only with a healthier lifestyle.
Over the years, civilization has attempted planned communities and smart cities with varying degrees of success. From nomadic tribes to Greek city-states to forts in the Wild West; and now some companies are building brand new?masterplanned?cities from scratch on?greenfield?sites. I've been involved in both nationally and internationally planned communities, described in earlier articles and included in my Linkedin profile. There's a 75 mile strip in the Ozarks that may be the best yet?
As a consultant, I often find businesses and visions and then look for ways to make them better through synergism. Better known today as collaboration."
Credentials
Prior to writing it off completely, you might check back to my CED Magazine article in 1999, when I predicted companies like Facebook, Amazon, Google, and YouTube that were in their infancy or didn't yet exist, were primed to capitalize on behavioral marketing and targeted ads. Cable was missing it, telephone companies were missing it, and printed media was missing it.
Wow! Just this week (April 20, 2022) the discussion of needing ad revenue in addition to subscriber fees to cover content cost resurfaced.
It returned in the form of Netflix - after years of resisting advertisements on its streaming service, Netflix is now “open” to offering lower-priced tiers with ads, co-CEO Reed Hastings said Tuesday.
Jimmy Fallon took a few well timed jabs at Netflix in his monologue about becoming television (with ads).
Look for CED Magazine article "Satisfaction Guaranteed"
Points made that in the early days television content was paid by advertisers, not subscribers.
Cable and other media was shifting to a subscriber paid model. Prime example ESPN, and sports. Subscriber rates increased exponentially, while Amazon, Google, YouTube and Facebook took their ad dollars.
The revenue "gold mine" is buying habits and preferences.
Simply put behavioral marketing and targeted sales.
This was forecast in May 1999, in the primitive stage of social media.
Failure for MSO's to capitalize opened up opportunities for new social media companies to capture the digital ad dollars, and my company to gain a competitive advantage with our early entry in the global market.
Importance of staying relevant in business.
Opportunity to gain a competitive advantage with our early entry in the global market.
More recent business development opportunities:
Arkansas Academy of Computing Induction— Herb Lair
Presentation for Herb Lair at the Induction Ceremony for the Arkansas Academy of Computing, October 29, 2021
My work experience with companies developing futuristic ideas that now have urgency: (New ideas coming to market)
1. Grainster ( Trading Department Marketing ) -
Update: this role more likely coming from Tyson's Food with Springdale Arkansas Headquarters.
is a global leader in the procurement and sale of grains, chilled & frozen meat, poultry, pork, seafood, feed and fresh & frozen vegetable products, along with their respective derivatives. Our trading associates hold with over 6 years of experience in these commodity groupings.
At Grainster, we have built a new type of network of experts around the globe, serving the world’s food suppliers and customers with diverse products and services that help them grow their protein or agri business.
Our suppliers count on us to market their goods competitively and creatively inside a now changing market landscape. Our customers rely on us to find the right products with the best value. Whether dealing with frozen and fresh protein and vegetable products, all of our clients depend on our highly skilled team to help them seize opportunities and make good business decisions.
After determining foodservice losses are going to extend for at least another 12-14 months, what are the adjustments to avoid excess inventories? Product adjustments to commodities or finding new markets for pricier products?
Blockchain is the Holy Grail for global commodity trading - grain, poultry, beef, and pork. Along with using Bitcoin and other digital assets to facilitate transactions.
2. Sensara (both professional and personal experience) -- Netherlands
Social distancing from aged parents is now more than proximity. You can live next door or across the country with similar restrictions. As I have aged, I have become more interested in ways to monitor special needs and aging in place via non-intrusive motion detectors using an artificial intelligence algorithm based on user's normal activity. Sleep habits, eating, restroom, and leaving residence and returning on a defined schedule.
3. TrustHab -- Orlando
HVAC maintenance presents a constant challenge for property managers. They usually need to wait on tenants to report any maintenance issues, meaning that many malfunctions can go undetected for weeks, even months at a time. Aside from equipment issues, properties also face the challenge of residents intentionally adjusting device settings, creating conditions that can be detrimental to facilities. Two common occurrences include turning off equipment altogether in the winter/summer months, and excessive usage during peak times. These tactics, if left unmonitored, can lead to costly property destruction resulting from mold or water damage.
TrustHab??is a robust Facilities IoT Solution designed to provide Property and Facilities Management teams with the data to be able to rapidly diagnose and address these maintenance issues, as well as analyze historical data to help create more efficient properties. The Solution leverages real-time equipment monitoring, proactive maintenance alerts, analytics and insightful metrics to empower property managers to increase NOI, reduce staff over-time hours and prevent costly repairs.
4. Solvatio -- Germany
Solvatio provides leading solutions for automated troubleshooting and malfunction resolutions in technical systems & devices. Originally founded as spin-off of the Department for Artificial Intelligence and Applied Computer Science of Würzburg University more than 20 years ago, Solvatio continues to push the boundaries of AI for automated data-driven knowledge generation and AI orchestrated troubleshooting.?It is our mission to minimize service efforts, reduce support costs and achieve superior operator and customer experience across all interaction channels while ensuring the provision of excellent technical support and flawless operation.
Targeted troubleshooting for improved agent productivity and maximized resolution rates
SOLVATiO? Help Desk will enable your help desk agents to resolve even complex technical customer problems, just as your most experienced support experts would.
Initiated by a customer’s problem description, SOLVATiO?’s automated troubleshooting procedures will guide your support agents ef?ciently through problem resolution.
SOLVATiO?’s powerful automated decision-making features do the job and are fully definable by your support experts via the SOLVATiO? Studio design component. SOLVATiO? Help Desk provides your Help Desk agents with powerful automated troubleshooting capabilities:
5. University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) study (personal experience) -- Little Rock and Fayetteville Arkansas
Utilization of a neuroinformatics research platform to develop quantitative tools for clinical assessment and treatment of?Parkinson's disease patients in rural Arkansas
Purpose of study is to try to understand how Parkinson's disease affects movements and speech and how to measure these things
Next Spinal cord stimulator? (Upcoming trial)
Appendix A. Epic's property valuation could ultimately approach $500 million in Verona
n 2005, Epic's $150 million project helped expand Verona's tax base by nearly 25% over the previous year, and city administrator Saeger muses that Epic's property valuation could ultimately approach $500 million. However, due to the city using tax increment financing for the parking and site improvements that helped seal the deal, the new property tax dollars won't be going into Verona's general fund for years. But that's okay, say Verona officials. Epic will generate other growth in the city.
Says Slavney, "Those Epic employees are the quintessential, highly desirable demographic group that communities" compete for.
Land rush!
That will change. Verona officials, eager to have Epic's employees and visitors spend money within the city borders, have green-lighted commercial development for 60 acres served by an on/off ramp from Highway 18-151 constructed expressly to improve access to the Epic campus. The acreage abuts a working farm, but it won't be growing corn.
Employees aren't the only newcomers who'll be taking to Verona's streets in the coming years. A steady stream of out-of-town visitors from the company's marquee customer, California-based HMO giant Kaiser Permanente, and from other health-care clients, will be traveling to Verona and filling the 2,000-plus-seat training and meeting facility Epic plans to open in 2007.
Retail shopping centers and chain restaurants are certainly in the city's future as well. Now that Verona is approaching the 10,000 population sweet spot that makes big-box retailers sit up and take notice, a Wal-Mart, Kohl's or large-scale bookstore seem certain to arrive. (Last year, Verona failed to pass a big-box ordinance that had been prepared in anticipation of the retail behemoths' arrival.)
Verona would be smart to study Sun Prairie's experience. In 1980, Sun Prairie was a small factory town and farm center with a population of just over 12,000. Then, in 1982, General Casualty Insurance moved from downtown Madison to Sun Prairie. Today, the city boasts more than 24,000 residents, and nearly all of the land running from its own downtown to the eastern border of Madison is either developed or under contract for development.
The lesson Sun Prairie's growth spurt teaches is simple: Once a community embraces big development, the genie is unleashed.
Inevitable...or not?
As Saeger sees it, Verona's proximity to Madison guaranteed that it would be caught up in the same inexorable push for urban growth that transformed the old farm town of Fitchburg into a city of 20,000-plus over the past 20 years. That's why Madison's subdivisions are already within a couple miles of Verona's eastern flank. And it shouldn't be a surprise that Phillips reports that 55% of Verona's workforce commutes to Madison for their jobs.
But nowhere is it written that Epic's arrival means rapid growth is the only path to the future. Yet Verona seems locked in that mindset. Witness the recent talk of merging the city with the town of Verona to fend off Madison annexations.
Verona Mayor John Volker told The Capital Times the chief reason for political integration was "so we could both preserve the areas we want to preserve, without having the county's influence over it."
"We've had housing pressure without Epic," says Kringle. "But, yes, we are anticipating some kind of pressure from Epic's location. We've been told by our professional [planners] that there are kind of two rings [of development] around Madison. We're in the second ring and the pressure is just beginning."
Appendix B -- 50 things to know about Epic Systems and the woman behind it all.
Judy Faulkner was a recent graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a master's degree in computer science when she started Epic Systems in 1979.
Here are 50 things to know about Epic Systems and the woman behind it all.
The company - few of the 50 things
1. The first office of Epic was comprised of three part-time employees in the basement of an apartment in Madison. Epic was originally named Human Services Computing.
2. Human Services Computing began with a $6,000 investment, part of which came from Ms. Faulkner's parents. Today's Epic is entirely self-funded, as Ms. Faulkner and Epic's early leadership did not raise money from venture capitalists or private equity investors, according to?Forbes.
3. Epic remained in Madison, eventually occupying a main office and five satellite sites, until 2005, when it moved to neighboring Verona.
4. In addition to its headquarters at Verona, Epic also has offices in The Netherlands, Dubai, Singapore and Copenhagen.
6. Epic is privately and employee-owned. In order to ensure the company remains private, Ms. Faulkner created a charitable foundation that her stock will go into and allow the company to remain privately held. The foundation is called the Epic Heritage Foundation.
About Judy
8. Ms. Faulkner is the founder and CEO of Epic Systems.
9. Prior to graduating from UW-Madison, Ms. Faulkner received her undergraduate degree in mathematics from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa.
12. Ms. Faulkner recently signed onto The Giving Pledge, an initiative started by Warren Buffet and Bill and Melinda Gates. The pledge asks the world's wealthiest people to donate the majority of their wealth to philanthropy. Ms. Faulkner pledged to donate 99 percent of her assets.
The EHR platform
14. The EpicCare EMR platform consistently receives top marks from KLAS Research. Epic was named the best overall physician practice vendor in 2014 by KLAS. It was also named the best overall software suit of 2014 by KLAS for the fifth year in a row. Additionally, the inpatient EMR was named the best acute-care EMR, and the ambulatory EMR was named the best for practices with over 11 physicians.
15. According to the company, 69 percent of U.S. hospitals who have achieved the HIMSS Stage 7 EMR Adoption Model Award use EpicCare.
16. Epic has approximately 315 customers. Some big-name clients include Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente, Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic and Boston-based Partners HealthCare.
17. Additionally, CVS Health, the largest retail health clinic in the country, uses EpicCare at its CVS MinuteClinic locations.
18. Implementing Epic's EHR is a significant investment, as they are often the most expensive platforms to adopt. Partners HealthCare invested $1.2 billion on its Epic implementation, the health system's biggest single investment to date.
EHR vendor competition/market share
Partnerships
24. Most recently, Epic announced a partnership with IBM Watson and Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic to apply Watson's cognitive computing capabilities to the EMR, which will then submit patient data from the health records to Watson for analysis. The end goal is to better match patients to clinical trials and, ultimately, enhance care delivery.
26. In 2014, Epic joined forces with Walgreens and UnitedHealth to form Carequality, a coalition centered on accelerating the exchange of patient data between all stakeholders, including hospitals, payers, physicians and retail clinics.
Interoperability
28. Epic receives a significant amount of criticism from the rest of the healthcare industry for being a "closed" system that does not make it easy to exchange data, a characterization the company continues to fight.
29. Epic claims it is the first vendor to facilitate a patient data exchange between two different EHRs in August 2008 between two facilities in Long Beach, Calif., according to?Politico.
30. According to Epic, 6.3 million patient records were exchanged on the company's Care Everywhere platform in October 2014 between Epic EHRs, non-Epic EHRs, health information exchanges and government agencies.
31. Much of the flak directed toward Epic relates to the vendor abstaining from joining other marketplace collaborations that claim to be dedicated to interoperability, such as the CommonWell Alliance, whose members include competitors Cerner, athenahealth, McKesson, Allscripts, CPSI and Greenway Health.
35. Epic has a director of interoperability, Peter DeVault. Mr. DeVault recently testified in front of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions in a March 17 hearing defending the vendor's interoperability. He said Epic provides customers with the vendor's source code and developer support, as well as tools to support the free flow of information between systems and organizations.
47. Epic doesn't follow a budget, Ms. Faulkner told?Becker's Hospital Review. "Our philosophy with that is if you need it, buy it. And if you don't need it, don't buy it," she said. "We teach people how to judge things appropriately and make the right decisions, so it isn't chaos by any means. What we did see is that if you have budgets, people spend to their budget."
49. Epic is known for its marketing-free success. Just 1 percent of Epic's employees in 2012 were in sales and marketing, according to a?Forbes?report.
50. Ms. Faulkner told?Becker's Hospital Review?the reason for the minimalist marketing approach is simply because she isn't a marketer. "When I started the company, I had no idea how to do marketing, so we just didn't do it. What I did know, because I was a technical person, is to be able to write good software. So we focused on writing good software, and we focused on doing good support. And then fortunately, word of mouth did the rest. We didn't intend to be a marketing concept, we just simply didn't know what to do."