Poitiers university hospital, GLIMS 9

Upgrade to GLIMS 9 offers CHU de Poitiers lab advanced ergonomics and unparalleled customisation

With its close and long-term relationship with MIPS, the CHU de Poitiers (university hospital of Poitiers) has become the first laboratory in France to migrate to GLIMS version 9. An enthusiastic user of the GLIMS laboratory information system (LIS) since 2005, the hospital and lab could clearly see the advantages of the advanced flexibility and ergonomics. “Our users can now accomplish in one click an action that used to take seven or eight,” comments Florent Ribardière, Bioinformatic Engineer for the hospital’s Biology pole. “Plus, it’s extremely easy for each lab department to manage its own configuration. The change in performance was noticeable immediately.”

The CHU de Poitiers provides high-quality care services in the Poitou-Charentes region of France, which has a population of more than 1.7 million inhabitants. The hospital itself has a capacity of some 1,900 beds and offers an extensive range of services for acute, follow-up and extended stay care.

In 2005, when the university hospital was constructing a new building, it centralised and regrouped its 18 geographically dispersed laboratories into 10 laboratory departments. “We had four different LIS,” explains Florent Ribardière, who was a laboratory technician at the time. “We chose GLIMS to homogenise practices across the various lab departments because it was the most open solution and its parameterisation best met our needs.” The hospital further strengthened its ties with MIPS when it implemented the CyberLab tool for ordering lab tests in 2010.

In 2015, the laboratory carried out 5,066,077 analyses, about 75% of which were for the CHU, with the rest for outside the CHU, and another 43 million for external referrals. And in 2013, the laboratory signed an agreement to consolidate its activities with the CH de Montmorillon, to create a multisite lab service.

With 140 technicians and 50 biologists, the biomedical laboratory, spread out over two floors of the CHU of Poitiers site, handles almost 2,500 files and 4,000 tubes each day. This volume is constantly increasing due to the regional biology project: the CHU of Poitiers is in fact increasing its activities by offering its services to nearby facilities (the hospitals of Niort and Lusignan, and soon those of Montmorillon and le Blanc).

“This window to the outside world impacts local medical practices, as well, with laboratory results being sent in electronic format using secure messaging. These results can then be reintegrated in the doctors’ own software,” explains Alexandre Pavy. In the coming months, an internet portal should also make it possible to consult CyberLab from outside the hospital, offering the possibility for duty doctors to check results from their homes.

Fast, dedicated configuration

While both Florent Ribardière and Alexandre Pavy had experienced GLIMS upgrades before, it was clear from the start that version 9 was something more. “It takes a completely different approach to the ergonomics of the interface,” explains Florent Ribardière.

At the start of the upgrade project, the CHU team carried out the pre-configuration to allow the migration, handled by the MIPS team, to take place rapidly and under good conditions. “There was a lot of configuring to do, plus user training, which we expected,” comments Alexandre Pavy. “But the process went very smoothly and was completed in the expected time frame.” The GLIMS 9 migration took place overnight, with no significant problems.

The next generation, GLIMS 9, offers a new user interface that improves usability, increases speed and decreases training time. The solution is completely configurable: the hospital can define the content of screens and reports, and even customise it for specific users. “We decided to arrange the interfaces by laboratory department,” says Florent Ribardière. “Before, the interface had dropdown windows in which the user would have to select what he wanted, and then move further into the interface, sometimes to five or six different levels. That meant as many as seven or eight clicks. The menus couldn’t be configured to the individual departments.”

Now, he explains, each lab department has its own homepage. “The idea was to bring the most frequently used tools to the central homepage of the department. By configuring the buttons, the users can now do in one click what used to take several. This saves an enormous amount of time!”

Each lab sector set up a workgroup to devise and to model its homepage based on its specific needs, to ensure the relevance of the tools for the user. The CHU de Poitiers team then configured these pages. “The first one took a bit of time, because it was so new, but after that they all went quickly,” recalls Alexandre Pavy.

The hospital wanted to give each department maximum autonomy for configuration, while still maintaining a certain homogeneity. Alexandre Pavy and Florent Ribardière trained the department key users in the parameterisation: “Now we mostly intervene if they have a difficulty. But otherwise, they handle their own configuration. People have the tools they need and want, within a context put in place by the hospital. It’s an excellent balance of homogeneity and customisation,” comments Florent Ribardière.

The user training was carried out before the upgrade went live. “We could thus comply with the NF EN ISO 15189 standard, which requires the laboratory to familiarise the users on how to use the laboratory management software,” says Florent Ribardière. “The new interface is based on widgets, so it’s very intuitive and easy to learn. New users are very quickly autonomous. Once they know the main three or four buttons, that’s it; they’ve got it.”

A multisite tool

Now, he explains, each lab department has its own homepage. “The idea was to bring the most frequently used tools to the central homepage of the department. By configuring the buttons, the users can now do in one click what used to take several. This saves an enormous amount of time!”

Each lab sector set up a workgroup to devise and to model its homepage based on its specific needs, to ensure the relevance of the tools for the user. The CHU de Poitiers team then configured these pages. “The first one took a bit of time, because it was so new, but after that they all went quickly,” recalls Alexandre Pavy.

The hospital wanted to give each department maximum autonomy for configuration, while still maintaining a certain homogeneity. Alexandre Pavy and Florent Ribardière trained the department key users in the parameterisation: “Now we mostly intervene if they have a difficulty. But otherwise, they handle their own configuration. People have the tools they need and want, within a context put in place by the hospital. It’s an excellent balance of homogeneity and customisation,” comments Florent Ribardière.

The user training was carried out before the upgrade went live. “We could thus comply with the NF EN ISO 15189 standard, which requires the laboratory to familiarise the users on how to use the laboratory management software,” says Florent Ribardière. “The new interface is based on widgets, so it’s very intuitive and easy to learn. New users are very quickly autonomous. Once they know the main three or four buttons, that’s it; they’ve got it.”

GLIMS 9:

• Rich functionality for all types of laboratory exams: biochemistry, haematology, immunology, pharmacology, toxicology, etc.
• Scalable and natively multi-site solution that uses a single database
• Easy and flexible parameterisation by profile, role or user
• Graphical visualisation of workflow
• Supports ISO 15189 standards, with functions such as complete traceability

Benefits:

• Advanced ergonomics decrease training time and improve usability.  
• Speeds up work of laboratory personnel: fewer clicks means greater productivity.
• Easy parameterisation allows maximum customisation, in a homogenous, shared system.
• Adapts to multisite use, supporting the hospital’s growth.