Epic Downtime Scheduled for Sunday, September 13

A planned quarterly update will cause Epic to be unavailable on Sunday, September 13, from 12:30 – 2:30 am in all regions. The read-only environment will be up-to-date as of 15 minutes prior to downtime. Please review the following information to prepare your teams. 

Key details
  • Upgrade version: February 2020
  • Starting Wednesday, September 9, Epic will have a number of filtering and personalization functions locked down. View a tip sheet for details.

Prepare for downtime:
  • Remind your teams to use downtime procedures and tools (NM Interactive login required). If prompted to log in to Policy Manager, use your NM username and password. Click “Browse manuals” on the left side of the page, then “Northwestern Memorial HealthCare (NMHC) Manuals,” followed by “NMHC – Health Information Management (HIM) (NMHC).”
  • Each clinical area should have a supply of the most commonly used paper forms to be used during the downtime. Reference your downtime binder for additional details.
  • Print the patient and unit reports needed for patient care from Web Business Continuity Access (BCA) or Local BCA computer.
  • Save documentation and log out of Epic before 12:20 am on Sunday, September 13. Any user still logged in at 12:30 am will be automatically logged off.

During downtime:
  • Follow the downtime procedures for your area.
  • Read-only environment will have up-to-date data as of 12:15 am.
  • Use Epic Hyperspace Downtime access for view-only lookup of patient records during the downtime. Access Epic Downtime Hyperspace using the icon available via Citrix or One Desktop.
  • Write and tube or fax lab orders, and send specimens to the lab with a downtime requisition. Critical lab values will be called back to the applicable patient care areas. Patient care staff can call the lab to obtain test results.
  • Write and tube or fax orders to applicable departments such as Pharmacy, Radiology and Cardiology.
  • Pyxis will be on override. Omnicell will follow normal operations. Contact Pharmacy for any assistance.

​After downtime:
  • Registrations or orders that occurred during the downtime should be entered into the system.
  • Nursing, allied health and physician documentation should also be entered into Epic.
  • Please refer to downtime procedures for details about system recovery documentation requirements by role.
  • Epic Crystal Integrated (ECI) reports, Epic SlicerDicer and reports available in the Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) portal and cubes may be delayed.

If you have issues during or after the downtime, call MyNM Service Center at 312.926.4357 (HELP).
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