The entire VA health system is converting to Cerner in the near future. In the meantime unrelated to Cerner and very related to ISMP Targeted Best Practices we as the safety center have been pushing hard for metric only measurement. (it’s a big system with an archaic information system so sites are genuinely worried about safe transitions).

Because we do inpatient and outpatient both (and a tremendous amount of outpatient), we have some struggles with our mail order system carrying a standardized metric only oral liquid measurement device versus both measurement device types). Sites that went metric only for liquids have elected to fill the few oral liquid RXs locally to keep a good eye and control on things.

With Cerner impending, staff are worried about how this will work in our future state with metric only.

Can anyone with a high volume of mail order RX transmission and Cerner give us an idea of how this has worked for the best safety practice given these different environments and systems?

Does Cerner support a mixed system of metric and non metric terms in the outpatient RX sig field or is Cerner basically metric sig terms only? (I’m not supporting a mixed system but merely trying to convey what will happen in the new system).

Thanks!!

Mary