Hi all, this is my first post but I have a client who is looking to implement a commercial software blood banking application - both donor and transfusion modules - and we're trying to get a gauge on how long the implementation would take. I know that until I provide one of the BB companies with all of the specifics we're not going to get an exact project plan, but I'm okay with estimates. If any of you who have implemented a full system anytime in the past few years can give me an idea of how large (transaction-wise) your BB is, and how long it took you to be fully automated and up to speed that would be very helpful.

Thanks in advance,

Rob

9 months to a year would probably be a good general estimate to validate both transfusion and donor modules, of course depending on how many people were working on it, and how much time was spent per day, etc.

One year sounds reasonable, depending on the resources you can throw at this project and the level of vendor support you get.

Be careful of your client's documentation requirements, which may differ from what you think is reasonable -- there is alot of unreasonableness in the Blood Bank world!

It took us 16 months from contract signing to go-live but we did our own validation and our LIS staff did the 16 years of data extraction and conversion from our old system.

The facility/corporation I just left is in their 6th year of trying to get a transfusoin service computer system installed and that is after the first contract was signed. Obviously this will make for an interesting story which I don't think I'll go into until I write my memoirs.

General rule I would think between 9 and 18 months depending on the size and complexity of the install.

:juggle:

We went live early last fall with just the transfusion side of a BB system. We are 7 sites sharing the same database so we divvied up the validations between sites but did the truth tables at each site.

The vendor did the data conversion extraction for 6 sites (7th was still manual paper) and the interface from the LIS into the system took 4 months to get going.

From the time we trained with the application specialist it was right at a year. I had 1 FTE and 1/2 of me working on validations at my site and we were in great shape at go live.

End user training was a big piece for us. The new system was a big change from the old one. I allowed 10 hours/tech for training, 5 modules at 2 hours each, this doesn't count homework time. With 20 techs working in our BB it took about 6 weeks to get through this.

Our go live was pretty much a non-event but my partner and I have lots of expereience from our prior jobs. We had the dedicated resources necessary and my director backed us 100%, even though our productivity numbers suffered.