LabWare – A New Force in Public Health LIMS
LabWare has been careful to focus all of its energy and capital resources on a very specific area, laboratory automation and has then approached that focus area with a “whole product” philosophy. For example, the same commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software is delivered and configured to automate workflows at installations such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Health Canada’s National Microbiology Lab, US Naval Research, USDA, and several US State Public Health Laboratories.
More recently (5 years), COTS LIMS vendors mainly in the US and Canada have been attempting to provide efficient and effective solutions for public health. High expectations were placed on LIMS vendors through a requirements document produced by the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL). The outcome of this effort has been that COTS LIMS vendors for the most part have failed to provide a viable solution for public health laboratories, with the only exception being LabWare. LabWare through its unique architecture and functionally rich product has been able to provide a proven solution for Public Health Laboratories. Of course the only way to prove this claim is to talk to our and our competitor’s Public Health Laboratory customers.
For a full list of LW Public Health Laboratory customers please see our link on our Clinical Main Page for Customers
Customers choose LabWare because:
· LabWare LIMS functionality is significantly broader in scope than the alternatives
· LabWare LIMS is a true Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) Product. Our application does not require a toolkit or dictionary to render screens.
· The ease of configuration allows for a customer configurable product. Our customers can adjust to changing requirements on their own without the need of a LabWare consultant.
· LabWare LIMS underlying technology follows open standards and is considered to be the most technically advanced. By making extensive use of AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) components, LabWare has created a web solution with a very rich and interactive user experience that rivals that of a Windows application.
Comprehensive Public Health Laboratory Solution
Given the existing threat of bioterrorism and the advent of potential epidemics such as West Nile, SARS, and Bird Flu, the current state of information technology in Public Health Laboratories is not capable of handling the increased amount of data. LIMS is needed to regain the capacity to effectively respond to public health threats.
On top of the increasing workload, Public Health laboratories are expected to adhere to HIPAA regulations and PHIN requirements. The result of these new regulations and the difficulty and inability of existing systems to adhere to these regulations has rendered most of the existing Public Health information systems obsolete.
LabWare has addressed these challenges by providing the following capabilities:
§ Adhering to the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) and the Public Health Informatics Institute (PHII) requirements (The Requirements for Public Health Laboratory Information Management Systems).
§ LabWare has proven through hundreds of successful implementations in both clinical and environmental lab test environments that LabWare LIMS does have a huge impact on reducing administration overhead, increasing throughput and improving the quality of laboratory data. A few ways to achieve these improvements are:
o Limiting manual data entry through instrument interfaces, and bar coding
o Streamlining the exchange of information with customers and partners
o Increasing access to information on lab workload, performance, utilization, etc.
o Automating and/or eliminating administrative activities
o Harmonizing and centralizing reports
o Improving access and visibility to lab data
o Providing historical data mining for statistical analysis and surveillance
§ LabWare LIMS enables participation in the Public Health Information Network by receiving electronic requests for laboratory testing and electronically returning results via PHIN standard HL7 messages. Transmitted messages adhere to the following PHIN-standards:
o Transmit electronic data via PHIN-compliant HL7 electronic transactions
o Ability to transmit electronic data in a secure format conforming to NEDSS and HIPAA standards for privacy and security |