Here at UK HelathCare we have been using a Talyst Carousel for about 8 months now (installed for a year). We are a 473 licensed bed facility, and the Carousel we have is a little unique. Unlike most falilities that have two Carousels, we have one gigantic one (13 feet wide, 6 feet deep, 13 feet tall).
When the Novation drug distribution contracts were up for bid a few years ago, we changed from AmerisourceBergen to Cardinal (whole different thread there). Our reason for changing was mainly for the technology that Cardinal could offer at that time compared to what ABC could.
Best thing I can say is "buyer beware" at the moment. We were one of the facilities that had the Carousel constructed when Talyst deemed the AutoPharm software unsafe for use, and it sat there as a gigantic paperweight for four months before AutoPharm 2.0 was finally released.
The training we received was pretty much a farce. Don’t get me wrong; I think hands on training is the best way to learn something, but when we had questions about something, our trainer would pop some sarcastic comment back, which got old after a while.
We use Pyxis for our ADUs. AutoPharm has some great functionality with ADUs in that stockouts automatically queue up to be picked and newly loaded meds are too. The interface does have issues though, and at the present time we are currently not using either one of these functions due to a loop in the system (pull a med for a particular station and it re-queues two minutes later and never goes away). This occurred mainly after we were upgraded to our current version of AutoPharm 2.2 (which Talyst does not remember upgrading us).
Preventative maintenance is supposed to be done every six months by a local company Talyst contracts with. However, we have never seen anyone come to service it.
Overall our experiences with Talyst have not been the greatest. The company has seen a great amount of turnover in all levels of the organization (one of the VP’s we have been working with recently has been with the company a total of 2 months). Tech support is not the best either (severely understaffed). Takes longer than it should to resolve issues.
However, if we can get our current issues resolved, which Talyst has taken interest in resolving after me had to make some threats, the system will be great and I would love to sing the praises of it.
Sorry to be long winded, but we’ve experienced a lot in the few months we have used the system. To summarize our experiences: A system that has great potential that has so far not performed to expectations and has caused a whole lot of stress on the staff.
Name of Facility: UK HealthCare Chandler Medical Center
City, State: University teaching, Cancer Center, Children's Hospital, Level 1 Trauma
