cerner millennium...

[labgirl153]

I've used many LIS programs over the years...Sunquest/Mysis, Meditech, Hemocare Lifeline, HBOC, Cerner classic and Cerner Mill. (limited exp.), plus some "homegrown" systems along the way.

Would like to read input from those of you who've used Cerner Mill. so far as pluses, minuses in the transfusion service and comparisons to what you've used in the past etc. Or, if anyone can direct me to a site or blog/forum that has opinions from a bench tech's and supervisor's standpoint that would be great.

:cool:

[Mary]

Cerner Millenium has a much more complicated build system than Classic. Making changes and additions is more difficult.

When we upgraded, the only patient history that they uploaded from Classic was the antibodies and patient comments. No ABO&Rhs. Very disappointing.

Programming printers seems to be rocket science in Millenium!

Dispense is harder. Unit that are reserved or crossmatched do not appear on the screen. You have to enter the unit numbers.

Classic was more reliable and user friendly.

The icons in Millenium are pretty tho!

Good luck.

[labgirl153]

Thanks Mary for the input. Hadn't heard about the printer programming situation and this would be helpful to know that there might be an issue.

I never cared for the icons, as they rather look all the same and crowd the screen but my experience has thus far been limited to the training modules and from hearsay. I'd rather memorize a few codes and acronyms then do pull-down menus and deal with several windows open at once etc. Just my preference though.

Anyone else who has experience with Cerner mill, please also weigh-in...and you also Mary if you can think of further comments.

[bevydawn]

The facility that I work at switched to Cerner Millennium from Classic last April (2004). When they did the switch over, they took any patient history from 01-01-90 on and put it in Millenium, which here includes aborh.

I agree with the comment that dispense is harder, although I dont know that I would say harder but it doesnt seem to flow as nicely, a little more time consuming.

I too would rather memorize acronyms rather than using the mouse constantly, but there are a lot of little shortcuts you can learn to minimize use of the mouse which helps out a lot! The icons dont bother me too much, I have all mine large (you can choose large or small icons) just to minimize my clicking on the wrong thing because the little ones are definitely little. Plus you can arrange them to your personal desire, everyones is what suits that particular person. And as far as them crowding the screen, thats not really an issue for me because every icon you click on opens up a new window.

The one thing I really like in BB is you can do multiple different things at once. All you have to do is open up different folders within the same window and click between the different folders so you can be doing a type on a couple people, a screen on a couple more, and a crossmatch, a cord blood, and confirm typing all on the same screen, just different folders.

One bad thing about BB...its really easy to get results hung up or units "locked", especially when you're first learning and then you have to waste time forcing results out or unlocking units. And of course there's always my extending preadmit specimen expirations issue that I am having right now, but hopefully I figure that out in the near future.

I hope I havent confused anyone too much, I just think there are good and bad points as which is probably true with any system.

[mewilde]

I've only recently been using this computer system, but have also used MISYS GUI (windows environment) at two other facilities. The issues with complexity and slowness have more to do with the complexity of GUI than with the individual computer systems. We had issues with Sunquest/MISYS that are very similar to Millennium. It's simply the nature of laboratory computer systems in the 21st century. It would be interesting to hear how each of you is adapting to the system after several years' experience. All of those "classic" users out there will have to bite the bullet sometime!