The First Acute System on Epic Orchard | The 229 Podcast with John McDaniel

October 1, 2026: John McDaniel, CIO at Trinity Health in Minot, North Dakota, sits down with Sarah Richardson. Trinity is the first acute system on Epic Orchard. The region is rural, about a 120-mile radius, and recruiting and educating an implementation team was the hard part. Epic handles the third-party contracts and the upgrades. Discovery replaced an RFP. More than 300 people, about 10 percent of the organization, took part. John says 97.9 percent chose Epic. He also says undercoded care was about $36 million a year. He chairs the AI council and can say no.

Key Points:

• 0:00 The first acute system on Orchard

• 4:16 Luma Health

• 5:32 Epic handles the contracts and the upgrades

• 7:38 Clearsense

• 8:26 Discovery instead of an RFP

• 10:02 A 10-year case approaches a billion dollars

• 10:29 About $36 million a year undercoded

• 13:06 Data owners sign off

• 13:58 The AI council can say no

• 16:03 $5 to $10 per encounter

• 19:43 Use the enterprise as an extension of DTG

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