EBME Forums Forums Management Medical Equipment Management CRS and Cerner Intergration of Medical Devices

Well its come and we have to go there soon and has anyone given any thoughts or done this project before, interfacing medical devices to cerner and crs that is.
Helllppppp!

CRS? Cerner? ... any more clues?

We have been told that we have to make a decision on whether to keep Cerner or not. This is now progressing through a consultation period.
Apparently, the government has financed it to date but this will cease to be by 2015.
We have to have Electronics Patient Records(EPR)so we are committed to continue down this path with whomever.
The additional costs to Trusts are projected to be approx £1.5M per year.

Cheers

Isn't "Cerner" an American company?

What's so special about it (them)? And what happens when they go down the pan, get bought out, lose interest ... or (as is more likely) start squeezing (gouging) once they become "indispensable"?

It looks like this is really all about the CareAware bus (.pdf).

All we want now is the spec!

Meanwhile, here is a big .pdf which spells out what "Cerner" is all about.

In an effort to gain some understanding about what all this involves, I have taken a quick trawl through the documents linked to earlier. My own interest remaining (as usual) the "kit itself" (and especially so-called legacy equipment), here are some of the points I have picked out:-




Driver library? Is this the BMDI:- Bedside Medical Device Interface? See this .pdf for something I imagine to be similar. I notice that the CareAware iBus is described as "middleware", and that "others on the market" are mentioned. Capsule (DataCaptor), I wonder? Let's hope that they share the same protocols, standards ... etc.


... "resides on the device itself" - an interface "box" on each bit of kit, I wonder?

(may as well include RFID in it as well, then, whilst we're at it ... as well as a RTC [real-time clock] that deals with GMT "clock changes" in the UK - in fact why stop there, how about having the thing flag up somehow when PM is due, bleep at you as you pass by, or anything else like that we can come up with?)


Another box to tick on the PPQ?

Meanwhile, from documents liberally littered with "new-speak", I have also picked out the following "definitions" (in the hope that folk might have a clue what they mean once they get banded about):-

BMDI: Bedside Medical Device Interface
CPOE: Computerized Physician Order Entry
eMAR: Electronic Medication Administration Record
EMR: Electronic Medical Record
EMPI: Enterprise Master Patient Index
EMS: Enterprise Messaging System
ESB: Enterprise Service Bus (eg, the iBus)
ESM: Enterprise Scheduling Management
PAL: Patient Access List
PAS: Patient Administration System
RDT: Radiology Desktop
VNA: Vendor Neutral Archive

* Another CE mark?

OK ... so we have libraries containing hundreds of device drivers. Hopefully, they are standardized, regardless of source (although somehow I doubt that).

I'm assuming that means some sort of interface box needs to be fitted on each piece of kit to be included in this Wonderful Scheme.

I can't help but wonder how these interfaces work (how do they "tap in"* to the kit in question), and what form these "boxes" take. And how to they connect (plug'n'play, remember) to the network (bus) - USB?

OK, so we have hundreds (or thousands) of devices on the bus at the same time, so how (and when) do they "speak up", I wonder? Do they "push", or wait to be "pulled" (polled) from a central controller. And how often ... stuff like that. If they "push" when something changes, well that would be almost all of the time, would it not? Perhaps they only start bleating at some pre-set trigger point, such as in alarm conditions.

And, not only how much is all this expected to cost, but who is going to fit all these interfaces (and how are the equipment OEM's reacting to issues like warranties on their kit, and so forth)?

And (lastly) ... do we assume that legacy equipment is going to be left out of all this (thereby providing yet another reason for it "not being supported" - and hurried off to the nearest skip) ... or is the spec (protocols, standards etc.) of this "open architecture" (as claimed) going to be published, in case others wish to have a go at "retro fitting" interfaces to older kit if necessary?

It might be stating the obvious, but not all types of kit will be needing consideration here. For instance, I doubt that my old favourite, the Roberts Pump, will be getting the Cerner treatment!

* OK ... via the appropriate driver - but how?

Thanks all Paul