Under a board-level mandate to migrate all Epic workloads to Azure within 12 months, Odom was tasked with ensuring secure, resilient, and cost-effective data security across various environments, including dorms, high-end research computing, and recently acquired hospital systems.

To guarantee the continuous availability of Epic, Jefferson’s EMR system, Odom evaluated over 800 applications across its environment, establishing a tiering system to prioritize mission-critical workloads for rapid recovery.

“Ensuring that Epic is always available is a complex challenge,” Odom explained. “Epic is the heart of our business, encompassing numerous modules and interconnected systems. So when we say that Epic needs to be up, we are referring to the tier one, core elements that support patient care, including laboratory and radiology systems – each of which has specific timelines to be brought offline and back online.”

Given the diverse range of users within the organization, Odom noted the importance of prioritizing systems based on patient safety: “In discussions with researchers, it can be challenging to convey that although their work is critical, it may not take precedence over immediate patient needs. When patients are on a surgery bed, their safety and care is our primary focus.” He emphasized, “While revenue generation is essential, Jefferson’s mission is clear: to improve lives. As a nonprofit organization, patient safety must come first, outweighing all other considerations.”