Meditech Magic quirks

[sarahk]

I have the misfortune of taking a new job where we use Meditech Magic. Is there a way to change a sample's expiration date (for samples from pre-op patients)? Also, does the expiration have to be calculated in hours? I had previously used Soft, where it could expire on day 3 at midnight rather than 72 hours exactly. We actually work that way and just say OK to all the overrides, but that seems dangerous. Thanks!

[Barb Thompson]

You will need to change it in the dictionary. As far as calculating the expiration, we also use midnight of the third day, but have the expiration set for 96 hours instead of 72. (Actually, I think they recently changed it to 240 hours to accomodate the 7-day pre-ops.) In our minds, we know when the specimen expires, so we don't rely on the computer to tell us. It's true that there won't be a stop if we try to XM with an expired specimen, but we have used Meditech for 15 years, and it has not been a problem.