I agree 100%. I can name off the top of my head about a dozen
programming errors in the last year alone that have cost us dearly, both
financially and to our users who lost functionality of a field, a
routine, and sometimes, the whole system. They've overwritten customs
with DTSes, made typos in DTSes, forgotten to retranslate programs,
forgotten to move in all parts of a DTS, didn't toggle services and
moved in Client Updates that required administrative rights to run,
which means our meager I.T. department had to run an update on over 450
PCs for them to work at all.
I'm not sure what route would be best to take, but obviously, hitting
the wallet is always a strong incentive. Just my 2 cents.
Rena H. Susca
Sr. Systems Analyst
Gaylord Hospital
Phone: (203) 949-2122
Fax: (203) 294-8780
[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Charlie Downs
Posted At: Wednesday, June 20, 2007 8:44 AM
Posted To: Meditech List Serve
Conversation: [MEDITECH-L] Buggy Meditech programming of DTS's
Subject: [MEDITECH-L] Buggy Meditech programming of DTS's
I don't know about everyone else, but I feel that was as Meditech users,
really need to get Meditech to improve on their programming accuracy.
I've run into more and more programming problems that have totally
unintended consequences unrelated to the problems that they were
supposed to fix. Below is an e-mail that I sent to our VP of IT this
morning. I would like to see some discussion on the L as to how to go
about getting Meditech to change.
Thanks, Charlie
We had a huge problem which we discovered last week, but only
realized the
consequences this weekend from a DTS which Meditech moved to Live on
Thursday. Pharmacy
Issue #5294828 was a problem that one had to give a reason when
re-processing a billing
error when we should have not been prompted for a reason. For some
reason, this tied to the
drug dictionary where one had to give a reason when updating it. This
was totally unrelated
to billing, yet when they moved this to live, it not only caused Pyxis
billing to stop, but
each time an item was removed, it credited a previously removed item.
When I called on
Thursday, Meditech denied that this was what was causing my problem.
I've pasted what they
found was the problem below:
Rebhan,Maria (MEDITECH) - Jun 18, 2007 - 0948 EDT: Brian, there is a
problemwith the DTS
we delivered. It was patched correctly but, the code from it iswrong.
I've fixed this
Inhouse and will just need change control for TEST. Tx
If this issue would have been a billing issue, I would have tested it
thoroughly before
having them move it to live, but it was not a billing issue. I am seeing
more and more of
this that when Meditech moves a DTS to test or live, it has uninteded
consequences that are
often not noticed until we are live with it, because no amount of
testing will pick up an
unintended change entirely unrelated to the DTS. Another example is
Pharmacy Issue
#5237726. It was supposed to fix a problem with a field not defaulting
from the formulary
service when adding a new drug (FirstDataBank). After this was moved to
live, I noticed
that we could not look up drugs as we had before and instead had to use
extra keystrokes
for look-ups.
The hours to correct all of the billing problems is huge. I strongly
feel that Meditech
needs to be held accountable for what I see as increasingly sloppy
programming. I would
like to see us file a formal complaint with Meditech over this issue
since this is one of
many times that I have seen this happen in pharmacy and cause huge
problems. Meditech does
not even have a Pyxis machine to test out the Pyxis fixes, and instead
is relying on the
users to test the fixes. In addition, they need to thorougly test other
programming changes
more thoroughly instead of using their customers as basically alpha test
sites.
Unfortunately, sometimes we only find out about these programming errors
after the fact,
which is not right.
Hopefully, by filing a formal complaint, we can get their attention,
but I would hold
my breath. We had an interesting discussion at MUSE about how to get
Meditech to change
their business practices, and short of a large group of users agreeing
to withhold
maintenance payments, I don't see them changing. Perhaps it is time for
Meditech users to
band together and consider such action.
Charles Downs PharmD
Washington County Hospital
251 E. Antietam Street
Hagerstown, MD, 21740
301-790-8904
***** CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE ***** This message contains confidential
information and is intended only for the individual named. If you are
not the named addressee you should not disseminate, distribute or copy
this e-mail. Please notify the sender immediately by e-mail if you have
received this e-mail by mistake and delete this e-mail from your system.
Our Mission is to preserve and enhance a person's health and function.
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This e-mail transmission message, together with any
other documents or attachments,
is intended only for the use of the individual or entity to which it is
addressed and may contain personal
information that is subject to confidential privacy regulations such as the
Health Insurance Portability
and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). The authorized recipient of this
information is STRICTLY PROHIBITED
from disclosing this information to any other party unless required to do so by
law or regulation and is
required to destroy the information after its stated need has been fulfilled.
If you are not the intended
recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, dissemination, saving,
printing, copying, or action
taken in reliance on the contents of these documents of this message, or any
attachment, is strictly
prohibited. Please notify the original sender (only) immediately by telephone
or by reply E-mail and delete
this message along with any attachments, from your computer. Thank you.
=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
To subscribe or unsubscribe to the meditech-l, visit
http://mtusers.com/mailman/listinfo/meditech-l_mtusers.com
To check the status of the meditech-l, visit MTUsers.NET
For help, email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Please visit and add information to the MTUsers WikiPedia at MTUsers.NET/mwiki
______________________________________
meditech-l mailing list
meditech-l@MTUsers.com
http://mtusers.com/mailman/listinfo/meditech-l_mtusers.com
=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
To subscribe or unsubscribe to the meditech-l, visit
http://mtusers.com/mailman/listinfo/meditech-l_mtusers.com
To check the status of the meditech-l, visit MTUsers.NET
For help, email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Please visit and add information to the MTUsers WikiPedia at MTUsers.NET/mwiki
______________________________________
meditech-l mailing list
meditech-l@MTUsers.com
http://mtusers.com/mailman/listinfo/meditech-l_mtusers.com
