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What is a LIMS?
As mentioned, the term 'LIMS' is an acronym for 'Laboratory Information Management Systems'.
They are almost always electronic in nature and although not all LIMS systems are identical in
scope or design, there are generally several common attributes. The most universal need that
a LIMS will address is tracking of lab samples throughout the sample life-cycle (cradle to grave).
A quality system will include several, if not all, of these sample related features:
Technical Metadata:
- Tests performed (or 'analytes', to you technical folks)
- Specific Methods used
- Sample Results
- Quality Control data
Human Intervention Metadata:
- Chain of Custody
- Who got the sample?
- Who logged the sample?
- Who analyzed the sample?
- Who approved the sample?
There are several other components of a quality solution for your lab. For example, although
it is completely possible to have a single, stand-alone, desktop application, most vendors
offer robust client/server applications. Most organizations need to have a scalable and
powerful LIMS, usually with an easy to use GUI front end, but a powerful RDBMS backend, such
as SQL Server or Oracle.
A LIMS system will usually have versatile reporting capabilities. What good is your
data if you can't report it? More and more vendors are including web reporting with their base packages.
In this day and age, it isn't a complete solution with out that.
Finally, for a program to really be called a LIMS it needs to be somewhat configurable since
no two labs are identical. There may be several similarities, but no two workflows are identical either. Therefore,
the product needs to be easily changeable by your on site IT professionals.
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