 | Laboratories do many analytical calculations on the results that are entered into LIMS manually by chemists or automatically through instruments that are integrated directly with LIMS. The historical challenge for the laboratories is that analytical methodologies change over time and new ones are developed frequently that require mathematical or statistical calculations to be performed when the results are entered. The inflexibility with traditional LIS or LIMS has been that often the calculations could not be performed due to lack of product functionality or they required product level changes that could not be implemented as quickly as the business required. This has led to a heavy dependency of laboratories on spreadsheet applications such as Microsoft Excel.
LabWare LIMS provides a comprehensive solution to solve the labs' calculation problems. Firstly, Analysis Methods in LabWare LIMS are created and / or revised using configuration of the LIMS. This means that a power user or LIMS Administrator can assemble a new Analysis Method in a fraction of the time it takes in a traditional LIMS product. Many of the most common types of calculations can be selected in a drop down list, such as average, mean, standard deviation, min, max, count, percent RSD, and the like, as shown in the screen capture below:
In practical terms, most laboratories perform a variety of analytical methods requiring simple to complex calculation functions. For example, it's common in an Analytical Method to need ways to perform logic and test for Boolean conditions as well as needing the ability to perform advanced mathematical functions. It is for this reason that LabWare provides a full featured macro scripting language in LIMS called LIMS Basic. LIMS Basic provides a library of over 400 different functions and decision statements that can be used to calculate one or more results in an Analytical Method. These functions are categorized into groups of related functions such as mathematical, array, string, date and time, extensive functions to perform various actions in LIMS, and many other related areas.
Example of a Complex Clinical Cross-Sample, Cross-Test Calculation in LIMS
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