Who doesn’t love a good parody account? Notice that I said “good.” There are some bad ones out there that aren’t worth the effort. However, a good one can be really entertaining and also educate people at the same time. The Onion website and some late night show have taught us this very well. They can also jump the shark or tread into ugly waters. We’ve seen that with some recent cartoons in the New York Times.
A great example of this has been the @EpicEMRparody on Twitter. I’ve enjoyed following the account on Twitter for the last couple months. I’m not sure who’s behind it, but they’ve put out some funny tweets that are often far too close to home for many EHR users. A number of their tweets weren’t my cup of tea, but for the most part, they’ve made me laugh. (And I’m quite sure they’re going to parody this paragraph in a tweet too)
Here’s a quick flavor of some of their work.
Our new safety feature will make you change you EPIC password every day. Your new password has to have 18 letters, 7 numbers, and 3 special symbols. Your new password cannot reuse any letters from the previous day.
— EPICparodyEMR (@EPICEMRparody) April 24, 2019
This isn’t just EMR software and usually isn’t the software vendors fault, but the admin who is creating these password policies. That said, I’ve heard so many people who’s administrators have created crappy policies like this. BTW, here’s the password I’d create: “This is my phone number 555-123-4567!” So, that policy was easy to meet with what’s called a passphrase.
These books were so fun!
As a kid I could spend hours searching for the hidden objects.
I designed the EPIC user-interface based on these books.Now, you too can enjoy the thrill of searching for and finding the button you need to care for the skin-covered flesh bags. pic.twitter.com/K4qhyE6oW3
— EPICparodyEMR (@EPICEMRparody) April 29, 2019
I guess the problem is that those books stop being fun when you already know where the stuff is hiding? Although, the parody account might suggest that this is why the EMR keeps updating and moving the UI around.
The EMR parody account is also responding to other people’s tweets about the Epic EMR:
You're welcome https://t.co/G4WkSVuwqf
— EPICparodyEMR (@EPICEMRparody) April 25, 2019
Plus, they’re retweeting tweets like this one:
You vs. in-basket when you come back after a few days away @EPICEMRparody
— Monia Werlang, MD (@MoniaWerlang) April 24, 2019
A lot of their tweets apply to the EMR industry as a whole like this one:
Several of you have asked me what my relationship is like with my own doctor.
It's wonderful.
Here's her picture.
I can't say enough nice things about her. pic.twitter.com/Ca1gV5RCYF
— EPICparodyEMR (@EPICEMRparody) April 28, 2019
I have to wonder what Judy Faulkner, CEO of Epic thinks about this account. Although, she’d probably say she’d never heard of it like she said about Jim Craemer. Epic does enjoy a good April Fool’s day joke, so maybe they have a sense of humor and don’t mind it much.
Regardless of what Epic thinks, the @EPICparodyEMR account has garnered almost 16k followers. So, the industry seems to be enjoying the account.