The 229 Podcast: Leveraging DevOps for an Innovation Startup and Crisis Leadership with Jim Feen

February 12, 2026: Most health systems run Epic downtimes at 3 AM when the hospital is slowest. Jim Feen, SVP and Chief Digital and Information Officer at Southcoast Health, did the opposite. He intentionally took Epic offline at 10 AM on a Wednesday morning without warning staff. Jim reveals why 100% of surveyed leadership wanted to repeat the exercise, how he consolidated 37 separate call centers into a single unified operation, and what he learned from spending a decade at MEDITECH before leading an Epic migration. This conversation challenges everything you thought you knew about downtime planning, business continuity, and building corporate muscle memory for the crises you can't predict.

Golf Tournament Registration: https://carahevents.carahsoft.com/Event/Details/686801-ThisWeekHealth

Key Points:

• 06:07 The Call Center Transformation
• 11:41 Epic Downtime During Business Hours
• 16:16 AI in Healthcare: Managing Innovations
• 21:16 Project Management and DevOps at South Coast Health
• 26:25 Closing Thoughts and Super Bowl Predictions

X: This Week Health

LinkedIn: This Week Health

Donate: Alex’s Lemonade Stand: Foundation for Childhood Cancer