Looking for nurses who work with Meditech, Eclipsys or Cerner

pjsleepy, BSN · Feb 28, 2007

Cross Meditech off your list and don't look back!!! In my opinion it is an ancient system and has NO PLACE even being on the market today with all of the newer, easier to use brands. Basically, a hospital I worked at did not give the staff a choice of what would be implemented. This hospital had used Meditech for years and we were basically informed that the new system that would be implemented would also be Meditech. Well, we had training on it and every staff member pretty much agreed that it was a pretty terrible system. Still administration did not listen to us and went ahead and implemented it. It lasted maybe a month or two. In the end they ended up paying twice as much (for Meditech AND the system that they had to replace Meditech with!) I also have worked some with Eclipsys and Cerner, all as a nurse in the ER. Both are good systems. I tend to prefer Cerner over Eclipsys, but neither are as rotten as Meditech. I hope this helps some. Keep in mind my views are from an ER nurse standpoint. I can not speak for other hospital departments. But if you are implementing the system hospital wide (ER included) PLEASE DO NOT CHOOSE MEDITECH!!! If I can save one more ER nurse the pain and suffering we went through.....Can you tell I have strong feelings on Meditech!?!?! LOL

burn out · Feb 28, 2007

The corporation that previously owned our hospital had Meditech and once we got the hang of it I really enjoyed using it. What I enjoyed the most out of the system was the way all the departments were joined together. If I needed lab results one pathway would list all the labs in chronological order over the length of the admission so you could see trends instantly. You could look up xray reports or whatever. You also could check back and make sure orders were put in and really cut back on missed orders. When they added eMAR with electronic scanning of meds and patients armbands I felt like I was working at Walmart but it gave you a real security backup on med admin. and you would not believe the med errors that were caught before they were made.

With our new owner we are back to paper charting and I feel like we are trying to reinvent the wheel.

p.s. Our ER never did have to use meditech, I guess the previous poster describes why it doesn't work in ER.

captaincoffee · Mar 19, 2007

I disagree with sleepy. I have been using Meditech for oh 6 or 7 years and find it quite easy to use and very expandable. I also do some of the assessment building/revising, which is involved but not bad once you get used to it. As well I am finishing a degree in Management of Heath Informatics so I do have some knowledge of systems out there. I ahve heard Eclipsys is good but have not dealt with it. I again disagree with sleepy and found Cerner to be a very difficult system that doen't even mesh well with it's own modules. I know of a hospital that uses Cerner for order entry and is looking at other systems for documentation because it is so bad. But, do your own research and present it to your senior management team.

Best of luck!

CaptainCoffee

faith716rn · Mar 19, 2007

I've worked with meditech for about 3 yrs and love it! Don't have any experience with the other systems you mentioned. Meditech is easy to navigate and like someone else said, very expandable. We also had the electronic MAR with our meditech system which at first was kind of a pain, because it was such a huge change from paper documenting. Basically, with meditech, you have all the information you need on your pt. in one place without having to exit and access different systems. Also important to mention that there have been very few instances where we had significant downtime due to system failure. Not sure how much of a problem that is with other systems.

supermom2 · Mar 19, 2007

Thank you all for your responses! We have narrowed down our search to 2 vendors.....Cerner & Eclipsys. I have been doing work with our project manager assigned to Phase 1 of this enormous project, and would like to know more about client education involving the vendor and the staff education department at your facilities. If anyone has worked with implementation and how either one of these vendors approached training at your facilities, I would appreciate hearing about it.

I am interested in finding out how they worked with your facility's education department, what staff-development educators were involved (nurse/medical informatics specialists, RN educators, etc.), how many staff were trained at a time, in what order did the vendor approach training, did the vendor do complete on-site training or did they suggest off-site as well, were application analysts sent on-site to train, etc.

Whatever info you can share would be helpful.

Thank you! Teri

verons · Mar 29, 2007

hi, i am an application specialist of firstnet solution (ed) cerner millenium system and a charge nurse of ed. we are about to implement cerner system in 4 months time. in my own point of view as i myself was designing and building the application itself, cerner is one comprehensive electronic-based system. its benefits mainly in emergency department are increases accessibility, accuracy and timely updating of patient information on the tracking board. increases efficiency of patient flow through the ed, maximize patient safety & provide prompt, consistent traige assessment and documentation to name a few.

RNPATL, DNP, RN · Apr 8, 2007

hi, i am an application specialist of firstnet solution (ed) cerner millenium system and a charge nurse of ed. we are about to implement cerner system in 4 months time. in my own point of view as i myself was designing and building the application itself, cerner is one comprehensive electronic-based system. its benefits mainly in emergency department are increases accessibility, accuracy and timely updating of patient information on the tracking board. increases efficiency of patient flow through the ed, maximize patient safety & provide prompt, consistent traige assessment and documentation to name a few.

i have to agree with you on your statements. however, i think the biggest challenge with firstnet is getting the physicians to use the t sheet in the system. since our implementation - we have found that many of the docs want the nurses to print out the t sheet. when we inquired as to why the docs wanted this - many of them said it was easier. that translates into "i really don't want to change my current practice."

my suggestion to you is to make sure you do some really good, comprehensive training with your ed physicians and let them know that printing the t sheet is simply not an option. if they know this on the front end - they may be more likely comply once you are live.

good luck!

RNPATL, DNP, RN · Apr 8, 2007

Thank you all for your responses! We have narrowed down our search to 2 vendors.....Cerner & Eclipsys. I have been doing work with our project manager assigned to Phase 1 of this enormous project, and would like to know more about client education involving the vendor and the staff education department at your facilities. If anyone has worked with implementation and how either one of these vendors approached training at your facilities, I would appreciate hearing about it.
I am interested in finding out how they worked with your facility's education department, what staff-development educators were involved (nurse/medical informatics specialists, RN educators, etc.), how many staff were trained at a time, in what order did the vendor approach training, did the vendor do complete on-site training or did they suggest off-site as well, were application analysts sent on-site to train, etc.
Whatever info you can share would be helpful.
Thank you! Teri

Hi Teri,

we just implemented Cerner at my hospital is January. Our roll-out was a part of our corporate implementation, but Cerner has been very supportive of our training program. We initially trained over 850 employees for activation. I was responsible for the overall coordination of training and the tracking of each NET's compliance to the required training. Cerner was very involved with our company and still is. Overall - I like the software and have worked with it as a nurse on the floor as well as the Informatics Educator.

Our education department is very small and in fact there is just one educator doing all the CareNet education post activation (and that is me). The nurses report they like the system very well. We had some RN losses after activation, but nothing significant in my opinion.

The biggest challenge we have right now is making sure the secretaries and the nurses populate the clinical orderables properly so they do not get lost in their task lists. I think we are making great strides in this area. Once the clinical orderables are being done correctly - I think this will be a great tool for the nurses as well as the other NETs.

Good luck.

burn out · Apr 8, 2007

The company that just bought my hospital are bringing in Soarian and it makes Meditech look like a dinosaur...I don't know that much about it yet but it does everything you never even thought of before.

verons · Apr 8, 2007

i have to agree with you on your statements. however, i think the biggest challenge with firstnet is getting the physicians to use the t sheet in the system. since our implementation - we have found that many of the docs want the nurses to print out the t sheet. when we inquired as to why the docs wanted this - many of them said it was easier. that translates into "i really don't want to change my current practice."
my suggestion to you is to make sure you do some really good, comprehensive training with your ed physicians and let them know that printing the t sheet is simply not an option. if they know this on the front end - they may be more likely comply once you are live.
good luck!

i certainly agree with you, physicians are quite hesitant to change their current practices and we have planned to provide them a very structured and thorough training 8 weeks prior conversion date. a physician trainer will conduct the training as well and there would be a 1 week focus group physicians training for those who are not able to catch up after their 8 week training. i hope that this plan would work and it's a bit difficult dividing my time as an application specialist, ed charge nurse and facility's learning coordinator,,, but i'm really trying my best to make things work out and put it into its proper perspectives. thank you for the brilliant advice.:)

NurseguyFL · Apr 17, 2007

This is an old thread, but I still want to add my 2 cents about Meditech. The other posters are right about the Meditech system. Its an ancient DOS-based program thats been around way too long. Think about it...DOS!!!! That technology died back in the 1980s. I've seen a piece of the code and its hard to believe that any modern hospital would seriously consider spending money on that trash. They've attempted to modernize it but its still not a good product compared to the others.