How Can Epic Beaker Help Optimize Your Laboratory Workflows?

Epic Beaker combines clinical pathology (Epic Beaker CP), anatomic pathology (Epic Beaker AP), and other core laboratory workflow functions in a single solution. This makes it easier for lab technicians and organizations to support the full patient record, improve data migration processes, track specimens across sites, and more.

Read on to learn more about the Epic Beaker lab system and how our Epic consulting services can help you optimize laboratory workflows.

What is Epic Beaker?

Epic Beaker is a laboratory information system (LIS) solution that helps hospitals, health systems, clinical laboratories, reference labs, and other health care facilities support laboratory services and workflows more efficiently. With embedded Epic Beaker functionality, healthcare organizations can manage clinical workflows and leverage a complete patient record to improve experiences for patients.

Epic Beaker helps organizations manage and support workflows including…

• Quality control
• Cytology
• Histology
• Microbiology
• Hematology

The comprehensive Epic Beaker LIS solution gives users the functionality needed to not only access and analyze key lab results and patient data more efficiently, but it also allows for the seamless transfer of native data between your laboratory information system and internal Epic electronic medical records (EMRs).

Main Advantages for Your Healthcare Organization

1. Intuitive user interface with customizable, easy-to-use application design and navigation capabilities to improve lab process efficiency.
2. Pre-populated data fields, reports, and templates to improve the speed and accuracy of core lab tests and workflows.
3. Batch-reporting functionality to enhance reporting capabilities for high-volume tests and improve consistency between workflows.
4. Discrete, well-defined data fields to enter, organize, and manage test results and other important testing data more accurately and efficiently.
5. Improved patient communication and engagement through pre-built integrations with Epic MyChart that make it easy to access test results and other important patient data without help from physicians.
6. Enhanced collaboration between individuals and different departments across the organization to improve overall quality of care.

Key Integrations and Add-Ons

Here are a few key add-on products typically integrated with Epic Beaker…

EpicCare Link

EpicCare Link is a web-based application designed to connect large healthcare organizations to community practices to improve access security and enhance patient engagement.

Integrations between Epic Beaker and Link can not only provide a single solution for lab outreach operations, but also help send, receive, and store lab metrics and results more efficiently in the same place.

Rover

Epic Rover is a mobile app solution that allows medical providers to improve documentation processes, validate workstation barcodes, and access relevant patient information whenever and wherever it’s needed.

By integrating Rover and Beaker solutions, organizations can manage mobile phlebotomy, monitor specimen collection, print specimen labels for patients, and more. Rover is enabled for both Android and iOS devices, allowing access to key lab metrics and pathology results at your fingertips.

Reference Lab Billing

Reference lab billing provides comprehensive billing software for all tests completed in the lab. With core integrations between your laboratory information system (LIS) and billing software, you can ensure patients are billed accurately for any tests conducted in the lab.

Leveraging LIS Reports to Improve Quality of Care

When it comes to using your Epic Beaker solution in the most beneficial way possible, leveraging properly-configured LIS reports can make or break the productivity and efficiency of your core laboratory management operations.

Here are a few of the main ways Beaker reports can help your lab operate more efficiently and improve decision making processes for users…

Personalized User Dashboards and Views

Users in different job roles or areas of an organization need different reporting functionality, access to data, and dashboards to manage tasks, announcements, analytics, and other key business activities.

On one hand, a physician may use their personalized dashboard to review current patient cases, manage follow-ups, complete quality control checks, and more. But, on the other, a user in the IT department may set up their dashboard in a completely different way, focusing on heavily-utilized activities and day-to-day testing tasks rather than overall analytics and broader oversight features.

Epic provides personalized dashboard features that give users the individual functionality and accessibility they need to track activities and use enhanced tools and applications to improve productivity and employee satisfaction.

Improved Tool Functionality

Selecting the right tools for your needs can not only support and improve overall system performance, but it also enhances usability, advances core lab management processes, reduces strain on your servers and internal staff members, speeds up day-to-day operations, limits turnaround times, and more.

Epic Beaker users typically leverage integrated tools to improve front-facing operations and long-term reporting functionality, including…

• Epic Clarity – Reporting database supporting the Epic clinical information system (CIS)
• Epic Caboodle – Enterprise data warehouse (EDW) supporting Epic CIS functionality
• Epic Reporting Workbench – Business intelligence (BI) tool supporting data exploration and reporting across the Epic system
• Epic SlicerDicer – Self-service reporting tool supporting data exploration, analytics, and reporting for highly definable populations

Integrating applications and functional tools helps users take greater ownership over their data and their system, so choosing the right tools to meet individual or organizational needs is crucial.

Customized Reporting Capabilities

With outdated LIS functionality, the only way users could access and analyze important patient and test information was to extract it using less-than-optimal reporting capabilities. But, Epic’s built-in reporting tools and advanced functionality allow data to flow more freely between systems, clinicians, and labs, making it easier than ever to analyze data, build reports, and improve workflow efficiency across the board.

Epic Beaker also provides multiple levels of reporting, enhanced application views (i.e., Outstanding List, Case Prep Worklist, etc.), and customizable dashboards to ensure all user and organization needs are met.

Its personalized interface, user-friendly dashboards, and application views not only help improve visibility for clinicians and other staff members, but these advanced features also help keep sensitive data safe and secure by using user-specific dashboards to provide access to appropriate information for each user.

Updated Chart Reviews

Chart Review in Epic allows users to quickly and easily find and access a patient’s chart. With Chart Review, physicians and other staff members can review any Epic report that has been created for any given patient and leverage advanced features to create and use filters that simplify chart navigation and data analysis for patients throughout the continuum of care.

While most Epic users often rely on Results Review and other viewing functionality to meet their initial report viewing needs, leveraging updated Chart Review capabilities, custom columns, and personalized report views ensure organizational needs are met.

With updated Chart Reviews, users can not only improve reporting and viewing capabilities to meet physician, employee, and company needs, but also improve accessibility for all users and enhance employee engagement, productivity, and satisfaction.

Partnering with the Best

Whether you need help navigating decision-making processes to choose the right Epic products for your needs, leveraging innovative software integrations to improve productivity and patient safety, or anything in between, Surety Systems is here to help.

Your technology. Your priorities. Our expertise. That’s the name of the game with us.

How Can We Help?

Our team of senior-level Epic consultants has the technical skills, functional expertise, and real-world experience needed to help lead your team to implementation, integration, or upgrade success.

And, to give you a better idea of what to expect when partnering with us, we’ve included a sample profile of one of our top-notch Epic Beaker consultants…

Surety Senior Epic Beaker Consultant

• 15+ years of Epic & HL7 experience
• Certified in Epic Beaker, Ambulatory, and Cadence
• Built Clinical Pathology systems in Epic Beaker application, including: Outreach build, distribution schemes, CRM build, and Patient List Build
• HL7 Bridges, Allscripts, and McKesson experience
• Build and Training experience
• Implementation, Go-Lives, Vendor Liaison Management, and Program Development expertise

Getting Started with Us

Interested in learning more about where Epic software can fit in your organization?

Know you need additional support for your Epic systems, but don’t know where to start?

Ready to jump right in with one of our expert Epic consultants?

Contact us today!