Windows 7 and Blood Bank LIS

[lawblood]

Recently, our IT department upgraded 2 PCs in the department from Windows XP to Windows 7.

Soon after, we started experiencing some changes to our BBIS.

We had to get each user to go in and individually change their display settings in Windows to correct the issue(s).

Has anyone else had unnverving performance issues since going up with W7?

 

The issue(s) have been reported to the vendor, and I do not want to disclose the product in public.

[tbostock]

We are ready to change our PCs to Windows 7 next week, so now I'm a little nervous.

[lawblood]

Although our vendor states our version is compatible with Windows 7, there have been some issues with the display and how the appilcation performs.

We had recently upgraded a few months ago, but the validation was done using Windows XP.  I would strongly suggest you load Windows 7 to 1 PC and do some

testing before you load to the rest of your workstations.

[lawblood]

_{Without disclosing the vendor, the problem was that the tech could select a patient name to work on, but the application would display a different name.}

_{The was corrected after the tech changed their personal Display settings in Windows 7.  The application was initially validated using Windows XP and there were no performance issues.  The application is approved to run on Windows 7 by the vendor...apparently they did not experience this same issue.}

 

_{My only intention of this post is to heighten your awareness of potential problems with Windows 7 and your BBIS.} 

[Dansket]

IT recently swapped out lab PCs with Windows 7 PCs. We are using Meditech C/S ver 5.66. Discovered today that the Help system for the LAB,BBK, etc dictionaries is missing. Requires Meditech to re-install.

[tcoyle]

We did extensive validation when we moved from XP to Windows 7 to ensure that our applications were going to work with the new platform.  The vendor may say it will work, but our motto is, "Trust, but verify." 

[Mabel Adams]

So, is anyone having these troubles on Haemonetics/Wyndgate/McKesson/Horizon?  I know they say that version 3.9 is compatible with Windows 7 so I am wondering if anyone has had real life experience with that.  We will be converting to W7 in the next year or so.  I can't see where mentioning the vendor on here can do any harm and I would really appreciate the clarity.  IT processes all have problems at one time or another and it would sure be nice to learn from others' experience.

[tbostock]

I have SoftBank and they are upgrading my PC today to Windows 7. I'll update if I have any problems.

[tcoyle]

Mabel:

We are currently running 3.9.0 on Windows 7 for over a year and so far so good.     We performed regression testing, tested our interfaces from our LIS to the EMR and billing as well as the interfaces to our instruments.

[Michaele]

We are currently having the same issues.  Our IS department contracted out the PC swapouts.  They just came in and started switching PCs.  Our BB system locked up, all of our interfaces to instrumentation won't work--in every department.  Our link to our reference lab wasn't working, so we couldn't send out those tests.  The downtime snapshots for our BB patient histories weren't working.  IS response?  "You are going to have some growing pains, you're just going to have to deal with it".  ??!!!!!?!  That doesn't work for me. They have now come back in and given us our old PCs back until they figure out the compatibility issues with interfaces and systems.  Grrr. 

 

OK, thanks for letting me vent there for a minute.  I'm all better now.

[lawblood]

I appreciate the comments this post has generated.

The other day, one of our PCs locked up over a screen saver.  I've gotten permission to remove hospital network screen savers from our PCs.

Hopefully, that will help.

My sympathies to Michaele and her experiences with swapping out her PCs without any warning.  It's very hard for hospital IT techs to understand that a BBLIS is a medical device.

[CM2]

They are switching to win7 in our facility also. One unexpected problem we had was with the default settings of login security. When Win XP was left idle for a period of time, it times out to password lock, previously anyone with a valid network windows account could log in (so multiple users could use the same pc).

 

With Win 7 they changed the way admin accounts are structured, now only a true IS admin can boot someone out once it goes to lock. For added difficulty, there are no longer 'shutdown/log off' options shown on the login screen, and going to screensaver now also forces password lock. This means if someone is logged in and goes home or to break, you have to depower the pc and sit through the extended boot because 'windows was shut down improperly'

 

So besides the major issue of whether your bbis is compatible with win7, you definitely need to proactively request from IS to disable screensaver lockout as well as extend idle time to lockout to infinite. Because they do not generally seem to understand the concept of shared workstations common in the lab environment.

[carolyn swickard]

Oh wonderful - thanks for all the info and the headsup.  Always better to have some warning.

[ChrisH]

The whole lab except for BB was updated to W7, our version on HBB is not validated for W7.  But I do have a W7 with HBB on it that I can test and there are a few problems.

 

Also our IT guys had to leave a few older XPs around because of what software/programs were on them and we are slowly moving stuff off.

[lawblood]

Good for you that you were able to control the upgrade!

[tricore]

I have been testing Sunquest version 7.2.2 on a W7 computer and haven't had any problems.

[Karrieb61]

Gee, I'd be happy just to have something. Other than some basically free text result entries (type/Rh and "compatible" and free text on a positive screen) in an old Star/McKesson system, we are 100% paper. Talk about waiting for the shoe to drop.

[AMcCord]

Gee, I'd be happy just to have something. Other than some basically free text result entries (type/Rh and "compatible" and free text on a positive screen) in an old Star/McKesson system, we are 100% paper. Talk about waiting for the shoe to drop.

 

Just so you don't feel lonely, I still stuck in the paper world, too. Hospital management is gungho about the idea of blood bank software, but freaks out when they hear the price.