New Lab and Blood Bank Applications Will Go Live in the West Region On January 31, the West Region will implement Epic Beaker lab information system and Soft Lab Blood Bank workflows. The Central and North regions will implement Beaker and Soft Lab on June 5. The Northwest Region went live on Beaker last February when they implemented Epic. When complete, pathologists and technologists across NM can more efficiently perform lab workflows within the same integrated Epic system used by NM physicians and nurses.
Benefits of an integrated lab information system
Improved lab ordering workflow in inpatient and ambulatory settings
Improved ability to identify patients and track specimens with bar code scanning
Consistent blood bank workflows
Improved patient satisfaction: Patients who have blood drawn at one NM site — for pre-op prep, for example — do not need to get another draw if surgery takes place at another site.
Major changes
Add-On workflow. To ensure your add-on order reaches the lab correctly, choose the “Use Existing Specimen” button located at the top of the order composer window instead of the Add-On button.
Microbiology specimens and specimens collected at the point of care are not available as add-ons.
Order set consolidation: System level order sets and preference lists will be updated to reflect new orders. Orders that are going away will be removed. Orders that need to be replaced will automatically be replaced with a new order. You may need to update your preference list or order set.