LIMS, CDS, ELN, and so forth — these acronyms conjure up an impression of a laboratory that is well equipped and superbly
efficient. What is the reality? Close at best, but only in a minority of laboratories, and miles away in the majority of laboratory
situations. A laboratory may have a number of scientific applications purchased but the real question is: Can they implement
each one effectively and get it to work efficiently and save time for the users? The problem is that many applications when
implemented actually cause the users more work not less.
Let us ask some (awkward) questions:
Are any analytical instruments connected to your laboratory applications?
Are applications interfaced together to avoid retyping of data?
If the answer (please don't ask to phone a friend or go 50-50) to either of these questions is no, then your laboratory has
islands of automation floating serenely in an ocean of paper. Your interface is paper. This is inefficient, error prone, and
slow.
The problem is that we hardly ever consider connecting these applications as the topic usually is considered outside the scope
of each project. Lack of interfacing compounds the problem of inefficiency in the laboratory as all manual input into any
computer system needs to be checked manually by a second person to reduce typographical errors. Interfacing the instrument
to an application or interfacing two applications together is a crucial factor in improving the efficiency of the laboratory
as well as eliminating one of the real non-added value jobs in the laboratory — transcription error checking. Paper interfacing
is easy to achieve but is not cheap, as it requires continual human labor for input and checking the entries also is error
prone, as there is no automated data-extraction routine.
Let us look at the question "why interface?" in more detail. Here, we will look at the major area for the laboratory and its
analytical instruments interfaced to either an electronic laboratory notebook (ELN) or laboratory information management system
(LIMS). The best way to shame you into considering interfacing more proactively is to look at a very common application in
the laboratory — a chromatography data system (CDS). The majority of CDS implementations will control the gas and liquid chromatographs
interfaced to it, determine the method that an instrument will run, inject the samples according to a sequence file, acquire
and interpret the data, and generate the results — all in a single system. This is a great example of interfacing laboratory
instrumentation to an application.
Going into more detail, what is the advantage of interfacing to the users? In a single system, you can set up, control instruments,
and acquire chromatographic data. Working electronically, the analyst can view the chromatograms on the screen and reintegrate
where appropriate and calculate the final results. The majority of networked CDS applications have the ability to incorporate
custom calculations, which means that the analyst does not have to print out data to input them into Excel for final reporting.
When an analyst is finished, they will ask their supervisor to check their work. Instead of printing out piles of paper, a
supervisor can review the results including retention times, peak shape and resolution, standards, and quality control samples
to show that the method was under control. Furthermore, they review the integration and determine if the decisions made by
the tester were appropriate and change anything if required. All this work will be audit-trailed so that any quality assurance
checks can determine easily if procedures were followed. Note, in this discussion, there is no mention of transcription error
checking but there is no transcription to check as it is all electronic.
So, if we can do it for a CDS why not a LIMS? It is too much work, too complex, or can we wait until later in the project
phasing? The reasons might be all of the above. However, that misses the point. Implementing a LIMS requires that there is
immediate benefit for the users and payback for the organization who is paying for your incompetence in not interfacing instruments
into the process.
RSS
Bookstore
