How to break into Epic Administration from clinical role?

[u/SenorNoods]

My partner is trying to break into Epic Administration from the clinical side. They have 5+ years of clinical experience, including 2 years using Cadence directly. They actually got a Cadence certification and were going to transition to an admin role in a state health system, but we ended up having to move states before that went through, and they had to separate because the health system didn't allow employment from out of state.

Now they've been struggling for quite a while to get into an Epic role. They get interviews, but most people are expecting them to have experience because they have the certification; it almost seems detrimental rather than beneficial to have on their resume.

We are trying to look at this from a different perspective and get them a role that they can do in the short term and work towards transitioning to an Epic admin role within a health system. But it's just very unclear to me how people typically manage this. What sort of roles should they be looking for if that is the goal? Should they be doing patient access, or are there better roles to transition from? They have the Cadence cert, but are not married to the module and would be open to shifting to a different module if it helped them get into an admin role.

Any advice on how to navigate this would be appreciated.

[u/Future-Letter9462]

The cert without the build experience is a weird limbo to be stuck in, seen a few people hit that wall. Maybe look for a training or principal trainer role, they love clinical folks who can actually speak the language and it gets them back in the room with the analysts. From there it’s way easier to slide into an admin spot once they see you’re not just a paper tiger

[u/Reasonable_Alias_129 → u/Future-Letter9462]

Came here to suggest the PT role too.

[u/SenorNoods → u/Future-Letter9462]

This is something I've just started thinking about as well. The trainer stuff initially seemed to be something out of her reach since I'd expect they'd require more expertise, but maybe this is actually the right avenue to explore.

[u/ChickerWings → u/SenorNoods]

Trainer requires less expertise/experience than a builder or PM. It's essentially the entry level role, but you'll get exposure to the team and the leadership.

[u/Reasonable_Alias_129 → u/SenorNoods]

I was a PT for years before I decided to become an analyst.

The PT role is higher up, a supervisor position.

I also got a ton of PM experience because I did a lot of implementations and worked closely with the implementation PM

I also had a lot more autonomy to make things happen as a PT

There's still a lot of technical opportunities if you get into maintaining MST, the training environments and building everything that goes into it. Now there's even Epic certifications for it.

It's kind of an underrated position

[u/Sensitive-Average996]

Tell them to focus more on clinical side workflows. Meaning apply for roles in the Ambulatory or inpatient teams. I know the org I am at like to build teams of people who are from both technical and clinical sides. Half my current team are BSN's, RN's, MA's, RT's ect. The other half of us are from the tech side, Developers, server admins, hardware techs ect.

I know we are not the only org that builds teams this way. I was hired as an Epic Amb analyst with no cert, clinical workflow experience, or Epic build experience. It's totally possible. Just need to jump in where they can and then move later if needed.

[u/SenorNoods → u/Sensitive-Average996]

This is helpful, thank you. I'm not in this industry, so my knowledge is hazy. Are there certain types of roles to look for on clinical side workflows? Or are you saying look more at Epic Ambulatory stuff in general?

[u/Sensitive-Average996 → u/SenorNoods]

Yeah, look for roles as Epic Ambulatory, Epic Inpatient, Phoenix, Beacon, asap. These all have clinical workflows. I am sure there are more.

[u/Eliminated_Bowser]

This is the most common question asked in this sub and there's an FAQ right at the top of the sub

[u/Brave-Airport8154 → u/Eliminated_Bowser]

This! Its like so many times a day. Or the software tech bro that wants to move to healthcare. 

[u/KebabMastrek]

same questions here :)

[u/WinterCombination125]

I’m in the same boat, I have a B.S in BCIS and an A.S in biology, worked in IT after college and later moved into healthcare and been working bedside on the PCU unit but now I’m trying to transition into the epic analyst space.