Hello, we are moving to Epic in our province. My understanding is that Epic does not have a blood bank module. For those of you on Epic, who is your blood bank LIS provider that links into Epic and are you happy with the module. What are some of the pros and cons of your IT module?

Thanks. 

Edited June 26, 20196 yr by SupaLabGrl
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We have SoftBank and yes I like the system. It has taken some work to get them to communicate correctly. It will be an ongoing process for any BB system to work well with Epic.

 

Make certain to validate the interface between EPIC and your BBIS.  I noticed a 30 minute delay between them when HCLL and EPIC went on line together.

Could never get to see the interface validation (I was a temp manager). 

We're in the midst of moving to Epic. We'll have Beaker for the Lab and WellSky (formerly Mediware HCLL) for the Blood Bank.  Still too early to tell if we'll be happy with HCLL since we're still building it and will Go-Live in April 2020. 

We have Epic 2018a with Sunquest v8.0. They are working well together but always a work in progress. Nursing is using Epic BPAM so they are doing barcode scanning of the units at bedside so we are now able to issue blood product without any paperwork other than the patient/unit identification tag on the unit. We are in the process of piloting the same process of blood transfused in the OR given by Anesthesiologists. Next up is creating process for rapid scanning during Massive Transfusion.

Epic/Orchard Harvest/SafeTrace Tx

It has been challenging to get everything communicating, but once past that everything seems to be working well. We went live with SafeTrace in May, so stilling working on some bumps with billing and workflow.

Epic/Beaker/SafeTrace Tx.  There are some quirks of moving specimens between our facilities and outpatient orders that Epic and STTX sort of fight over.  We had to make some special settings in our interfaces to make them play well together.  We are using BPAM and scanning blood is working pretty well.  We are still working the bugs out of scanning for MTPs--mostly user error.  It works well in OR but the humans have trouble getting it all right in the ED and ICU sometimes.  Also, some MTPs are so fast they can't keep up with the documentation in real time.  Lastly, BPAM in an MTP pretty much requires 2 nurses to manage transfusions and not every place has that many people to use for just the transfusions.

On ‎6‎/‎28‎/‎2019 at 9:21 PM, sgoertzen said:

We're in the midst of moving to Epic. We'll have Beaker for the Lab and WellSky (formerly Mediware HCLL) for the Blood Bank.  Still too early to tell if we'll be happy with HCLL since we're still building it and will Go-Live in April 2020. 

This sound like what we are doing...You are now my best friend  so we can trade tips and secrets!  haha

This is very helpful thread.  We are moving to Epic/Beaker also.  has anyone used Haemonetics with Epic Beaker.  I had not heard of Haemonetics and I do not see any threads that reference Haemontics when I searched Pathlab talk-maybe I am not doing it correctly.  Never mind.  Haemonetics is Safe trace.  Mabel I will be using your same set up, so get ready to be bugged by me in a year or two

Edited June 25, 20205 yr by tkakin
Answered my own question

We have been on Epic with HCLL (now WellSky Transfusion) since 2013.  I like HCLL and they have user groups just for those of with Epic integration.  We're starting our 2nd upgrade to the newest WST 2020 version next week.  Do not wait too long between upgrades.  We do not see much of a delay (seconds) with out interfaced orders and results.  Unfortunately we are not on the Epic BPAM (Blood Producat Administration Module) with the matching so we still have paper transfusion records to document our clerical checks.  I really like their analytics software and it makes my monthly reporting easier.  Being a children's hospital with a large Hematology/Oncology department, Heart surgery and transplant, liver and kidney transplants, bone marrow and stem cell transplants, and multiple levels of NICU I like the safety measures built into HCLL especially for crossmatching and issuing products.  There are a few glitches with dividing and modifying (irradiating, washing) and pooling but they only happen once in a while since we went live with the 2016 version.  I highly recommend you purchase all the packages WellSky has to offer when it comes to build and maintenance.  Oh and their customer service is top notch.  I'm one of WellSky's customer resources/references so you can ask for me directly if you'd like.  Or you can reach me at samartinez@rchsd.org

Our blood bank (~900 beds) went live with HCLL and Epic in August 2019.  There have been a lot of bumps along the way.  We previously had Cerner and wish we could go back.  We were told that HCLL was the best BB system to use with Epic, but we think Cerner was probably better.  Every day we have to correct something that is just an HCLL-ism.  The system has caused extra work for our techs and management alike.  With all that said, I think it would work really well for a much smaller blood bank that doesn't do traumas as much.  

We have Epic EMR with Cerner LIS, however the systems are not “linked”. Blood orders print in the blood bank and we call each time product is ready. The nurses scan the blood bags (4 ISBT barcodes) at bedside but the “matching” part of BPAM is not turned on. Awaiting administration approval for this enhancement.

We'll be migrating to Epic in the next year or two. Probably with Wellsky or whatever HCLL is called. I know it probably depends on the organization, but is there much building to do with Epic or does a lot come standard with no customizing? We're currently using Meditech 6.0.