Telcor vs. Rals

I have!

RALS: 

• PRO: IT support is great, easy to work with, able to fix issues relatively fast


• PRO: Relatively easy navigation, look and feel of the application is intuitive, easy to make changes to flags, held results, review QC, pull reports, etc


• CON: EXPENSIVE!!! You are charged for the device module, then you are charged another fee for each facility, then you are charged for each device - I came from a system where I managed the POC for 17 hospitals, 18 free standing ED's, and close to 200 physician offices that all had at least one device I wanted to connect. If I picked Clinitek Status I was charged a large amount for that "module", then if I had them in 80 different hospitals/ED/POL's I would be charged 80 facility fees, then if I had 150 devices across those 80 locations I would be charged an additional 150 device fees. It was impressive!!


• CON: To add to that, I could not install my own devices in RALS, move them to a different facility or location - I had to put in a ticket with Alere to do that. I was a Pweb gal, used to deleting and moving and adding glucometers and iSTATs to my hearts content with almost no flair or issue. 

TELCOR: I have only been in my new position for about 3 months, so my experience with Telcor is more of a "first impression" at this time:

• PRO: I can get it to do nearly anything I can think of, as long as I ask their analysts to make it happen for me, they seem to be promising me the moon - and that includes some pretty sophisticated rules on flags and autoverify


• PRO: It literally tracks every single thing - I can get data pulls that include patient arrive time for door to result TAT (a metric harder to come by than you would think if you ask Epic or Meditech), patient ID scan or typed in, a complete audit trail of every edit, review or change someone made in the application to a test result, and I am certain I will keep uncovering little gems in there - a data miners dream!


• CON: It is an annoyingly ugly application - my first impression was that a high school kid could design a nicer more professional looking Access Database - because that is all it is to the end user - a giant Access Database "repository". With its big primary colored "tiles" to not having any decent drop down menus - literally everything you do in there pretty much is a database query. Took some serious getting used to for me, and I still don't love it.

I am about to be moving all of my devices to Telcor - I still have iSTATs on Pweb and Rapidpoints, Cliniteks and DCA's on Rapidcomm. That project will give me a much better look at what all I can make QML do for me.  I give both applications a C+/B-

There are some exceptional, vendor-specific data managers out there that are gorgeous applications for the end user, like InfoHQ for iSTAT or AQURE for radiometer. If there was a data manager as powerful as RALS or Telcor, that could handle all device types that POC can dish up, and maintain that modern look and feel, it would get an A. There does not exist a A data manager at this time, in my opinion :) Hope that helps!