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Epic and Sunquest BB Standalone


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We have had Epic as our HIS, and we will be moving to Epic Beaker next year.  We will be using a Standalone version of Sunquest, but the details have not been ironed out yet.  Does anyone have experience with Epic and the Sunquest Standalone product?  The primary problem we are having right now is figuring out how BB specimens will be collected once Beaker and Rover go-live.  We would prefer to not re-label specimens if at all possible.  We are not SMART. Any advice is welcome! 

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Interesting, What do you mean by a standalone version of Sunquest? Is the rest of the lab using Beaker and just blood bank using Sunquest? Will orders go from Epic to Beaker to Sunquest? And, the results follow the same path back to Epic? Or, if only BB is using Sunquest, can you have an interface between Epic to Sunquest?

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Beaker does not offer a blood bank module, so those hospitals going to Epic/Beaker must select some sort of standalone system for the blood bank. I'm interested to see comments because I will also be in this exact spot about 6 months from now (switching from Meditech 5.67) and I don't know which system to propose they purchase for just the blood bank department. Haemonetics SafeTrace, Mediware HCLL, Softbank, Sunquest?????  I have no experience with any of them.  Our whole hospital has been using Meditech since 1991.  Those with experience integrating a blood bank system with Epic/Beaker... please offer your advice!  We need a system that will accommodate bedside scanning/administration record, electronic crossmatch, as well as lots and lots of aliquoting and modifying since we are a children's hospital.

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My organization uses Beaker and Mediware HCLL, 15 Blood Banks are up on both systems.  Regardless of what BB system you pick there is build that is required to get specimens from Beaker over to your BB system.  

Several of our sites were long time Meditech users so this was a big change for them.  

And with having a "downstream" BB system you will have an interface.  Feel free to PM me, you have some very good questions here.

Or my home email is Likewine99@gmail.com.  

 

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We are about to begin a 'wonderful adventure' switching the entire hospital, the lab and our clinics to other systems. The hospital is going to Epic, the lab is going to Orchard (Anatomic is already on Orchard) and Blood Bank is going from paper to Haemonetics. Ask me in about 2 years about my sanity.

We looked at Sunquest, Haemonetics and Mediware for Blood Bank. All 3 assured us that they could play nicely with Orchard and Epic. I would have been OK with either Sunquest or Haemonetics, though I preferred Haemonetics overall.  I liked the functionality of some of the 'special' stuff like emergency release in Haemonetics. I did not look at splitting units specifically, though I was told that the functionality was there if we wanted to use it. That's not something we do currently because of the relabeling issue, but we might revisit that once we are live. I think their dashboard for patient history is going to be very clear cut for our generalist rotators, as will adding tests for patient workups. Will definitely be using the electronic crossmatch. We are planning to implement bedside ID for blood products (we've been doing it for pharmaceuticals for years), though that will probably not happen until we have the system up and running and are comfortable with it. The Haemonetics team assured us that the bedside ID would work smoothly - in fact, they said that nursing staff wouldn't even know that they weren't using Epic. Our emergency department wants fridges with blood in them for traumas (scary thought!) and Haemonetics has a lovely module that will let us control access to the fridges, if we decide to allow it. And we won't allow it unless the fridge IS locked down. Hopefully we've made the right decision.

 

Edited by AMcCord
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We have had SCC Softbank as our Blood Bank system since 2008.  Our lab was on Sunquest lab until March 2015 when our facility implemented Epic and the Lab went on Epic's Beaker.  I was very heavily involved with the Epic/Beaker/Soft implementation.  We brought up new inbound (ADT/Orders) and outbound (Results and Billing) interfaces.  We were also one of the first sites to go live with Epic's BPAM (Blood Product Administration Module).  Soft was able to send the required result components necessary for BPAM to work.  The only thing missing is the product expiration, which has to be scanned at the time of transfusion.

We have always been very happy with Softbank and the features it offers. It is very user friendly.  I have staff who have formerly worked with Sunquest, HCLL, and Meditech and they have all said that Softbank is by far the easiest to learn.  Implementation support has been great.  I found that Epic was not very flexible in their interfacing and expected Soft to make changes to accommodate Epic workflow.  Soft always managed to come up with a solution that worked for us.  Blood Bank tests are processed through Beaker.  We were able to have the Beaker labels for Blood Bank specimens configured so that the specimen ID number can be used on our Blood Bank instruments.  Soft files this number as an "Auxiliary Order Number" so there is no need for relabeling.  The billing has been flawless from the start.  We do have SoftLab which sort of runs in the background and there is setup that has to be done in SoftLab as well as SoftBank.  Most of the reporting as well as billing are done by Softlab and it is Softlab that interfaces directly with Epic.  We have found ongoing technical support to be very good.

In August 2015, we brought two affiliate hospitals (formerly Meditech sites) up on Epic/Beaker/Soft.  Soft was very supportive in assisting us with the multisite build since this was our first experience with a multisite environment.  The next hospital should be easier!

I would not hesitate to recommend Soft.  No matter what Blood Bank system you select I strongly suggest you have a Blood Bank person involved in the Beaker build, or at least present during discussions.  I did not have Beaker training but I have been told that during the training out at Epic there was little to no mention of Blood Bank.  If you have non Blood Bankers building Beaker, they may make decisions that will cause you problems down the road...like being able to add lab tests on to a Blood Bank sample.  Another suggestion is to be sure to be involved in the build decisions and test blood product orders with every Beaker module.  My experience was each group tended to do their build in a vacuum, despite trying to get them to attend unified blood workgroup meetings.                    

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Yes.  Sunquest says they can make the product Standalone.  However, we're still in the early stages and it looks like they haven't done it many times yet...  They don't seem to have it all worked out.   I know of a site that is SMART that has done it, but I'm looking for a site that has implemented it without SMART. 

Thank you for the info, bmarotto.  We are also looking to implement BPAM -- with a partial BPAM at first, and then moving to full functionality after the rest of the lab has moved to Beaker.  I was just in touch with the Epic folks and our interface team, asking if we could build a table in the interface to convert our product codes to E-codes.  (We have a 1 to 1 match with product codes and E codes, except for aliquots -- and I thought that might work.)  All Epic would say was that they "weren't sure it would work."  So, yeah...  I just gave in because I didn't want to be argumentative. 

For those of you who have moved to Beaker, are you collecting samples through Rover using Beaker?  Do your results go back through Beaker?  Or are you keeping BB separate entirely? 

Thanks for all your help! 

 

 

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We do use Rover to collect samples.  Orders and results for Blood Bank tests flow through Beaker.  Blood Product "Prepare" orders come directly from Epic and the results go back to Epic.  Epic told us with BPAM it had to be this way.  Be aware that for tests, the trigger that sends the Order Message to Soft is not order placement or specimen collection but receiving the specimen into Beaker Lab.  For this reason, is it very common for the "Prepare RBC" order to arrive in Soft before the Type & Screen.  We had to tweak some interface settings to make sure the T&S and "Prepare RBC" order ended up on the same order in Soft.  This may not be a problem with the new Order Linking functionality in the newest version of Soft. 

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EPIC does not have 510K approved blood bank module so test orders and results can be processed from EPIC CARE to BEAKER to BB system and back to same route.

Product orders has to come directly from EPIC to BB system and crossmatch results from BB system to EPIC. (Product order can not come through beaker).

I totally agree that you need to be involved in EPIC beaker build...most IT department do not care for blood bank and they will do whatever they want without involving Blood Bank. They like control!!! total control!!!

 

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Hi, we're in the process of evaluating Epic and Cerner as EMR replacements.  If we do end up on Epic, I wanted to check in on how the Sunquest Blood bank module standalone worked out with PatiLu.  We're you able to get it working the way you wanted it to? Did you upgrade to Sunquest 8.0 for the blood bank enhancements? Do you have the equivalent of transfusion manager and does it work with Rover well? Is it possible to do any reflex orders on Blood bank tests? What parts of Sunquest did you have to keep for it to work? 

Thanks so much!

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Let me start with my condolences for anyone embarking on the Beaker/blood bank system project.  We implemented Beaker for the lab and SafeTrace Tx for blood bank last year.  All of our specimens and tests come from EpiCare to Beaker to Tx and all product (prepare) orders go straight from EpiCare to Tx.  My advice is ask twice or three times particularly from the Beaker implementation folks, they have a tendency to say "sure, Beaker can do that" when it can't.

One of the bigger problems that we have with the specimens all accessioning in Beaker is the way that Beaker handles blood bank specimens/tests.  Beaker automatically puts them on a transport list and "ships" them to a virtual blood bank lab, then the main lab system thinks that the specimen has been shipped off-site, so no add-on's, no specimen edits, they aren't on the main pending list, and we have to receive every specimen in Beaker and then receive again in Tx.  Super annoying.

 

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