MACWHC

I'd also like to follow. Epic/Softlab/Softbank since 2011 (BPAM since 2015)

As a former blood banker now turned LIS analyst I see a few areas of concern: 1. Are you using a computer system? If so, I would be concerned with how your truth tables have been set up. Most (well the 3 I have set up) require an ISXM so either techs are falsifying a reaction to get by the computer, or the tables were not setup to correctly and perhaps should also be revisited. 2.What system are you using when crossmatching? Some require an ISXM for the ABO reasons stated above, If that were the case then I would challenge that the "safety" was compromised and would be reportable. Just a humble opinion.

bmarotto, thank you very much for the very useful information. I have just started to look at all the 'white papers' associated with BPAM and am glad your statements above confirmed what I was suspecting.

Anyone have any information or opinions on which product is better. They both seem to accomplish the same functionality.

Brenda, I'm completly on your side with this one. Especially with the "if the rest of the hospital would only do things the blood bank way". At our institution the label prints out of the LAB system and the work is done in the BB system. If a patients name is K. Michael Smith. The LAB system truncates to K.M. Smith.(upgrading soon and this will finally go away - yea!) BB will not accept the specimen unless the rest of Michael has been hand written in at the time of collection. The label must match exactly letter for letter and identifier (MRN or DOB) to identifier to be acceptable. Stick to your guns on this one!

As I read this thread several points come to mind as a blood banker for 15+ years now in IT. Ideally as a blood banker would I want this info? Yes but, only for those patients who had a positive result. Importing all those negatives means I have to search through more data to ensure that I'm really looking at the patient I think I am. How many of these converted patients have passed on, or passed through your area and will just be clutter? Pragmatically from the IT standpoint several thoughts come to mind. Who's going to pay for this conversion? Who from the now defunct organization will work with the 3rd party to do the conversion? Does your current hospital want to pay for this conversion? I know the almightily dollar shouldn't rule the world but I bet your hospital isn't willing to pay the 50K+ it's going to cost to get the info. What are you going to use as identifiers for this conversion. Generally it's Name, DOB, Sex, SSN needed for computer matching of the admission record to a blood bank record. (MRN omitted as we are obviously not comparing apples to apples) I can understand the reluctance of the defunct institution of not wanting the SSN of all of their old patients with blood bank records being put out there. Finally who becomes responsible for all the records that are not an exact match? John Doe vs John R Doe same DOB, Sex and SSN, do you throw those out? What on the surface seems like a simple and reasonable request is actually as all on this thread have pointed out, quite complex.

We have 4 2002's, in the last 2 years we have gone through 4-5 hinges. We have one out of service for that right now.

As I didn't "build" our version of classic I don't know if this works across the board, but in BLF we have the option of printing an emergency transfusion tag, you put in the number of forms desired and then tell Cerner to print a blank form. This causes all of the hard coded words to print but leaves spaces to fill in demographic info. Don't know if it will work but give it a try.

You must be able to print a blank form to use during a down, why not use that and just hand-write the unit number?

We are going live next month and tried for a very long time do just what you are asking. We finally decided that this would be an area that we couldn't apply "technology" to. There were too many variable to get it to work which is why I think you can't find a pre-defined calculation.