Epic-Beaker Venous Draw Requests for Unsolicited Orders

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We are a large hospital system that has been in the process of converting to an Epic-Beaker platform, from a Cerner-Sunquest platform. All interfaced POC tests are structured as unsolicited orders, with Telcor QML as our middleware. Our current struggle is getting the venous draw requests for these tests to populate the mobile devices (Rover) that are typically manned by a lab phlebotomy team, given that lab phlebotomy staff are not typically set up to view orders or tasks in Epic. Can anyone with the Epic-Beaker platform share a success story where these requests will reliably populate an electronic draw list on a mobile device? Again, these would not be solicited order builds, with a specimen number barcode like most lab requests, but simply a draw request for an unsolicited order. Because most unsolicited POC builds assume the device is going to the bedside to perform the test, we are not being presented with any ready solutions from Epic, though what we are doing (drawing and labeling the sample to be taken to a centralized location for testing) is surely not unusual, as many blood gas analyzers, for example, do not travel to the patient bedside. Thank you in advance for sharing your experience!

8 Replies

Chelsey Pleiss

Mon Mar 23, 2026 at 5:10PM

We struggled with this same issue when we went live with EPIC. I'm not sure if this is specific to our EPIC site or all EPIC, but we were told that blood gasses are built at a high level to be set as unit collect. Meaning they will not show up on a patient draw list/rover. They said our only option was to set all blood gasses to lab collect or we could specify all venous blood gasses are lab collect every time. Maybe this would work for your site?
Because it had to be all or nothing, we decided that we had to rely on communication.
What we ended up doing was educating staff that blood gasses have to be communicated with the lab. If the unit can run their own, they do. But if its needed on a unit that does not do their own POC testing, they have to notify the lab that its been ordered and needs to be collected. I know that isn't ideal for a larger system, but it has been working for us.

One of the original discussions in the beginning of our build was that blood gases are all ordered as LAB#’s. They are LAB EAPs with POC OVTs (its confusing, blood gases are complicated build in Beaker).

RN’s do collection in the system and print a Beaker label. This takes the order off their task list so others know its been collected. Once the Beaker label is printed it will show on the lab POC Expected list (because they are LAB# test codes. But this doesn't tell is that they NEED to be collected, so it really wasn't a helpful tool.

I'm sorry if this isn't helpful for your cause. If you end up finding a solution though - I'd love to hear it!

James Beck

Mon Mar 23, 2026 at 5:21PM

Thank you Chelsey - really appreciate your thoughtful response! Why did your facility opt to not have all venous blood gasses set to lab collect? Was it because of the combination of some nurse-drawn and some lab-drawn throughout your facility?

Barbara Edmondson

Tue Mar 24, 2026 at 8:19AM

James-Our facility has the exact set-up you describe, only difference is the respiratory department runs blood gas on EPOCs and some floors have ABL as well. The POC devices are set up to select venous /arterial sample type. The Lab does not run any blood gases.

Chelsey Pleiss

Thu Mar 26, 2026 at 3:40PM

Exactly that - we had to have the options for both nursing and lab to run them at the bedside or in the lab. We don't currently have a separate test method in the laboratory.

Karissa Goulder

Thu Apr 09, 2026 at 11:40AM

Our facility uses Telcor and Epic/Beaker. We use a combination of both solicited and unsolicited in our POC. The unsolicited tests that we use are BGM, epoc Blood Gas, and GH100/ACT. Generally when performing an ACT or Blood Gas, whoever wants that test is the same person collecting it. So for example, those two devices are set up in our CVOR and Cath Lab and during procedures if they need to run that test, they just scan the admission armband for the encounter and collect the specimen. For blood gas, if it is a venous sample, the RN or perfusionist is still the one to collect it and they just designate sample type on the epoc. At one of our sites, we also have an epoc for the NICU and they operate the same way. We don't have lab do any of the collections for those tests so there is no need for it to show up on any collection lists. The providers can still order blood gases outside of POC but then those are solicited orders that lab collects and runs (we use the ABL90 for main lab testing).

Cheri Carmean

Fri Apr 10, 2026 at 10:24AM

We also have that issue. Before we went live with Beaker, we had "POC Collections" orders that would cross to Rover-like devices. They behaved similarly to nursing communication orders in EPIC (no results/no charge/marked as complete on collection). It worked wonderfully for our unsolicited workflow. IS took those away when we went live with Beaker. We had to rely on nurses verbally telling the lab that a draw was needed. We chose to move all collection and testing to nursing for POC iSTAT testing. RT manages blood gases. They are fortunate to have a solicited workflow. Maybe your IT will allow you to have the POC Collections orders. They are still built in our EPIC, but our IS team won't allow us to use them because they see them as duplicate orders and don't want the providers to deal with them. Even though the providers didn't care that we used them for 10+ years before Beaker.

James Beck

Fri Apr 10, 2026 at 10:58AM

Cheri - thank you SO much for this. Extremely helpful to us!!

You would think providers would care more about their requests for VBG getting missed, wouldn't you!

James Beck

Fri Apr 10, 2026 at 5:03PM

Karissa - thank you for your response! Understand your operations for sure - where our issue challenges those models is the fact that the blood gas testing device does not function in a mobile role (as an Epoc or iSTAT would), so there is a need to collect and appropriately label the sample until it can be delivered to where it would be tested, typically in a Respiratory Therapy-run blood gas lab. In that way, it is a bit of a hybrid of solicted workflow (in that there is a specimen handoff) and an unsolicited workflow (where the operator is not a laboratory staff member and is not expected to follow solicited order workflow).

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Epic-Beaker Venous Draw Requests for Unsolicited Orders