After more than three years of planning, collaboration and preparation, Project Beaker will officially go live early Saturday, June 6.
This milestone marks an important step forward as Nebraska Medicine moves to a single, integrated laboratory information system within One Chart.
Beaker will replace several legacy lab systems and bring lab ordering, labeling and resulting into a unified platform. This transition is designed to support more seamless workflows, improve turnaround times and enhance patient safety across the organization.
What’s changing
All Nebraska Medicine, UNMC, Regional Pathology Services and Nebraska Public Health Laboratory teams will transition to Beaker at go-live early Saturday morning. From that point forward, lab ordering and label printing will occur within Beaker rather than in systems such as Sunquest, CoPath, SOFTLab and Sunquest Collection Manager.
Most clinical workflows outside of the laboratory will remain unchanged and available throughout the transition. There is no broad system downtime planned. However, to safely complete the transition, there will be a brief period of modified lab operations:
- From 11 p.m. on Friday, June 5 until approximately 3 a.m. on June 6, lab ordering will be limited to paper and STAT processes only.
- After go-live, normal electronic ordering will resume within Beaker.
Colleagues in clinical and support roles may notice some temporary adjustments as teams adapt to new workflows, particularly in how lab orders are placed, labeled and tracked.
Support during go-live
A comprehensive support structure will be in place to help colleagues navigate the transition.
A 24/7 Project Beaker command center will operate out of the 4230 Building and remain active until system performance is stable. In addition, super users, One Chart support staff and IT roamers will be onsite across clinical and lab areas to provide real-time assistance.
If anyone is experiencing an issue with Beaker during go-live:
- Start locally by asking a unit or department super user.
- Submit a ticket through the ServiceNow Special Project portal as needed.
- For critical issues, call the Help Desk triage line at 402-559-7700 and give them the ServiceNow ticket number. These issues will be escalated to the command center for rapid response.
As with any large-scale system implementation, some challenges are expected in the early stages. Colleagues are encouraged to remain patient, follow established escalation pathways and share feedback so issues can be addressed quickly.
At the med center, checking the Project Beaker Hub on the Nebraska Medicine NOW for the latest updates.