Epic team to begin phased deletion of old staff messages: What you need to know

To streamline communications and keep Epic running efficiently, the Clinical Applications team will begin purging old staff messages in a phased approach. This project affects all employees and physicians who use Epic, so please review and save any messages you may need before they are removed.

Why is this happening?

UC Davis Health’s Epic in-basket contains over a million staff messages, many dating back to the early 2000s.

“Reducing message volume not only improves search within the system, but it keeps your inbox clean for when others are covering for you,” said Senior Clinical Ambulatory Analyst Trinette Savage. “We want to make sure important information is stored in the right place, not lost in old staff messages.”

Phased cleanup timeline

• Phase 1: Beginning September 30, all staff messages from before 2010 will be purged.
• Phase 2: Beginning January 2026, messages from 2015–2019 will be purged.
• Phase 3: Three months later, messages from 2020–2023 will be purged.
• Ongoing: A two-year auto-expiration policy will apply to staff messages moving forward.

What you should do

Review your staff messages in Epic ASAP. If you wish to keep any messages, save them in a Word document  or using Epic’s postpone feature. Once purged, messages will not be retrievable through the in-basket search option.

Proper use of staff messages in Epic

Staff messages in Epic should be used only for internal communications that do not pertain to patient medical care. For example:

• Notifications about provider schedule changes
• Meeting reminders
• General administrative updates

“The vast majority of these old staff messages serve no purpose,” said Midtown Commons Clinic Medical Director and project co-sponsor Benjamin Leavy. “They do bog down the system, though, and make it run more slowly. A speedy Epic will benefit us all.”

Going forward, any message that contains patient information or relates to a patient’s care should be captured as an encounter type within Epic, ensuring it becomes part of the patient’s medical record.

Take time now to review your staff messages in Epic and save any you want or need before the first phase begins.