Validating a Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) with the many configuration and integration options that are available for LabVantage requires significant project planning and team coordination to execute successfully.
LabLynx, Inc. today announced an important new component in its overall COVIDLiMS informatics solution for laboratories, designed to offer faster, more accurate coronavirus testing as well as ongoing risk management for businesses and organizations. The C-SIC (COVID-Sample Information Collection) kit accurately captures specimen and patient information and ensures it is included on the sample label, preventing errors during sampling and transport.
Picture this—it’s the day that the lab informatics system you’ve needed for years finally goes live. You hear the cheers, you see the smiles on everyone’s faces, there’s excitement from the end users to learn the new system, and your boss can see the value of the system you implemented. It’s a happy day. If...
After 40 years our primary focus remains to provide laboratories with world-wide powerful and flexible software tools enabling them to compete in a highly competitive clinical diagnostics marketplace. Applying technology to create the most advanced—and most cost-effective—healthcare IT solutions continues to be our strategy as we introduce SoftBiobank™ to our Research Information Systems Suite.
As the nations of the world begin transitioning from flattening the curve to cautiously beginning to resume doing business, the focus is turning to how best to prevent a “second wave” - and in fact to operate over the long term in the face of potential similar pandemics. Experts tell us this may only be the beginning, and that the likelihood is that new zoonotic viruses will arise with increasing frequency as we continue to disrupt natural habitats to accommodate the ever-increasing human population.
There has been recent discussion of the lack of accuracy of COVID-19 tests - both virus (rRT-PCR), which has been widely regarded as “the gold standard”, and antibody assays. The issue with PCR is not with the methods themselves, but the degree of human error that creeps in due to the complexity of the workflow - including pre-analytical sample handling, which can account for up to 68% of errors according to a recent paper, with overall inaccuracies of up to 41%.
What is the current status of laboratory developed tests (LDTs) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) approach to them? What are the arguments for and against their regulation? In this 2020 review article published in Practical Laboratory Medicine, University of Washington's Eric Konnick covers the current U.S. regulatory environment for LDTs, as well as recent developments since the October 2014 FDA release of LDT draft guidance. Konnick then provides extensive commentary on the scope of LDT regulation in the U.S., including perceived risks to patients, LDT accuracy and equivalency, and how regulatory certainty fits into LDT innovation. He closes with recommendations for approaching future LDT regulation, concluding that "identifying tools that can be leveraged to improve laboratory test quality may offer many benefits that do not necessarily require a burdensome regulatory framework."
This is a Curtin University course that is released on the edX platform. The five-week course is designed for students to "learn how to apply software solutions for different systems and big data needs to your IoT designs." The course is free to take, with a Verified Certificate of completion available for $149. This course is also part of Curtin's Internet of Things MicroMasters program. The course requires on average four to six hours a week of effort. Access to the class begins February 24, 2020.