Money to spare
This training facility is huge. It's the kind of thing I'd expect to see at Google or Microsoft. I mean, there's more physical space inside here than in the community college I got my nursing degree from - it's maybe twice the size. True, it is only two stories, but each floor is about 25 feet tall, each classroom about 30 yards across, with a projector display that spans from floor to ceiling across the front wall. This room I'm in accommodates 32 students at large tables with flatscreen thin-clients for each of us, and though some rooms are larger and some are smaller, they're all set up about the same, and there are dozens of them.


(The building is shaped like a backward letter "S." The first picture shows the exterior looking from the bottom curve looking towards the middle where it curves to the top. The second (blurry) picture is one section of the interior hallway.)


EPIC makes a big deal about being a small company with only a handful of clients - 140 hospitals (or hospital systems), according to their website. If that many clients can support the money not just for EPIC's brand new headquarters (next door, and they're obviously just as grand) but also for this training center, then it just further illustrates some of the places our healthcare dollars are going that won't be curbed by tort reform bills.



(The picture on the left is one of the half dozen (unfinished) fireplaces spread across the building. The second is one of the stairwells to the second floor. (There are also at least eight elevators and a set of escalators.))


So, yes, it's cool to be receiving training here... but I could have learned just as well in a place without so many bells and whistles.


(One quick view of the countryside from one of the back windows. That's purdy 'nuff right thar.)