EPIC versus Cerner

[kirkaw]

Hi,

Our hospital is in the process of evaluating new software for the entire institution. We have looked at Cerner, Epic and McKesson. We (blood bank/TS) currently have SafeTrace (HBB) and personally, I dislike it greatly. But it has been a very long time since I have worked with anything else.

Can folks give me some pros and cons of Cerner and Epic? I heard that Epic does not have a BB/TS module so if our administration chooses them, we will be stuck with SafeTrace. 

SafeTrace has horrible reporting and the emergency release for an unknown patient doesn't work very well. So if we get Epic, is there any chance that I could get some better statistics, even though we would still have the same BB/TS system?

Any advice would be most appreciated.

Thanks,

Amelia

[Auntie-D]

Anything will be better than TraceSafe... I use it too and it is awful

[tbostock]

We have Epic for the hospital and the Lab (Beaker), and we had to get a stand-alone BB LIS.  We chose SoftBank and are very happy with it.  If SafeTrace is so bad, I would NOT move forward with it if you have Epic.  You need a really good BB system and a company that will work very hard to get you interfaced with Epic.

 

Epic EMR is really good, we will be implementing their Blood Administration module this coming year.  Beaker is a little rough but getting better with each upgrade; it was designed by IT people, not lab people and they are now starting to try to make it better.

 

I used Cerner Millenium in the past and didn't like it at all, but then again I think it was the way it was poorly built.

[David Saikin]

I have recently looked at stand alone BBIS . . . The McKesson product is safetrace (and apparently they are not going to support it anylonger - we have McKesson and my admin was kind of peeved that they would do a presentation knowing that they were dropping the product support).  Liked HCLL and Softbank . . .  going with the Soft product (I hope). 

[jojo808]

I never used Cerner but had 3 travel techs over several years comment on what a great system Cerner was.

[Eagle Eye]

Anything will be better than TraceSafe... I use it too and it is awful

What verison of Safetrace?  

[kirkaw]

Eagle Eye, I have SafeTrace version 3.9

[Auntie-D]

What verison of Safetrace?  

 

We are on the lowly 2.2.0.0

[Likewine99]

My organization is Epic EHR, Beaker Lab, HCLL Blood Bank. Beaker is not as mature as Cerner, tbostock is correct though, it is getting better with each upgrade.

 

We are satisfied with this combination and Epic is a top notch EHR.  

[albaugh]

We have Epic on the hospital side and Cerner for the lab, including Blood Bank. I worked in Blood Bank for 20+ years in 2 different hospitals, both of which used Cerner, so I can't compare it to anything. I will say that it's a very good system  - lots of functionality and checks and balances. As Terri indicated, a poorly built system makes all the difference. If it's built well, it rarely presents end users with any problems. Very customizable.