How data-centric laboratory information systems create new value, using your laboratory’s own data
The exponential growth of data has imposed new challenges on organisations and their information architectures. Legacy business applications continue to generate massive amounts of duplicative, erroneous, and unstructured data into disconnected data siloes. Millions of pounds and innumerable data lakes and data warehouses later, organisations struggle to manage and extract value from their own data because, until recently, data was an afterthought.
Today, enterprises want to capitalise on complex, data-intensive AI/ML and advanced analytics workloads that involve petabytes of data. To accomplish that, they are reprioritising data as an organisational asset and reestablishing their enterprise information architecture around data models that are designed to generate reliable, structured data.
This relatively recent paradigm shift of positioning data at the centre of enterprise architectures is known as data-centric computing1 Let’s look at how laboratories are taking this kind of data-centric computing approach, using their laboratory information system (LIS) or laboratory information management system (LIMS) to better manage and derive value from data as assets.
Clinisys Laboratory Solutions™: a data-centric approach to LIMS design
At the core of any laboratory data system is its LIS or LIMS. Every sample collection, test order, new user, reagent order, equipment calibration, and test result runs through the LIS or LIMS and necessarily generates a multitude of critical (and valuable) data points.
With foresight to the onslaught of data the world has experienced in recent decades, Clinisys took an innovative approach to developing a LIMS using a fully data-centric model that exceeds the capabilities of a traditional LIS or LIMS. Clinisys clients have confidence in the reliability and integrity of their data and therefore benefit from unique opportunities for connectivity, test sharing, geographic growth, and scientific collaboration.
Leading in laboratory information management technology, Clinisys serves clinical and scientific sectors, embracing the inherent similarities between patient-centric and sample-centric workflows, enhanced by robust capabilities built as microservices to cater to the specific needs of each laboratory discipline.
Here are some of the many important benefits our data-centric software solutions deliver for customers:
Manage complex data types
Clinisys designed Clinisys Laboratory Solutions to a data-centric data model to effortlessly handle a multitude of data types. This flexibility is critical for labs handling complex sample collection, chain of custody, or sample sharing workflows, where lab sample records may also include field collection notes, GPS coordinates, images, barcodes, and time stamps.
Whether the sample is air, water, soil, or food or the specimen is human, plant, or animal tissue, Clinisys Laboratory Solutions has the flexibility for your laboratory to seamlessly expand inputs and processes with diverse data streams. With equal flexibility, Clinisys Laboratory Solutions outputs those same diverse data types, quickly and correctly, to deliver information on any of your inputs for analysis, reporting, or export.
Eliminate data siloes
Laboratories with distributed software systems or disparate legacy systems from mergers are typically inhibited by data siloes and lack of data interoperability that hinder reporting, collaboration, and operational efficiency.
Clinisys data-centric data structures dismantle these barriers, creating an open data-sharing environment in which data flows freely across departments to benefit the entire laboratory business. The fact that public health laboratories use Clinisys Laboratory Solutions for diverse clinical and environmental testing needs is a testament to the flexibility of our lab management platform.
Assure data integrity
Fundamental to laboratory data management are data reliability and data integrity. At every step of your lab’s testing workflows, Clinisys Laboratory Solutions creates data logs about each specimen or sample to substantiate its where, when, what, how, and by whom.
This data logging, core to the data-centric design of Clinisys software, creates secure records and verifiable documentation for specimen management or sample management, from order to result. With Clinisys Laboratory Solutions, you can have confidence in the integrity of your data against tampering or manual error. Data integrity is essential to your lab’s reputation, as much with customers as with regulators. Clinisys lets you confidently share data with third parties for quality audit, certification, or chain of custody purposes.
Make informed decisions using advanced analytics
Lab data captured in Clinisys Laboratory Solutions is also infinitely queryable, allowing for advanced analytics on any data type, on any scale. Because the data-centric structures within Clinisys Laboratory Solutions, all captured data types remain at users’ fingertips for quick retrieval, easy analysis, and informed decision-making.
The built-in analytics tools empower end users with ad hoc queries, quality auditing, personalised dashboards, standard report templates, and an advanced report writer. The laboratory data management system is equally extensible for use with Power BI or other third-party analytics software.
Grow partnerships
With data at the heart of your lab computing environment, switching to a data-centric mindset, you can evolve to greater levels of data interoperability to grow your partnerships and expand your client types across business lines. A core differentiator of Clinisys Laboratory Solutions LIMS software is its data interoperability, positioning your lab for more diverse collaborations like test sharing and new clients.
Contribute to scientific research
Unrestricted data flow opens avenues for a broader spectrum of scientific and research endeavors. Data-centricity will inevitably strengthen data-sharing capabilities between laboratories, scientists, and researchers. Inhibited still by lack of data standardisation, researchers will eventually be able to consume ever-greater bodies of standardised information to drive advancements in both medical science and environmental science.
What’s next for data-centric computing?
As you embrace a data-centric application architecture at your laboratory, you will understand that data storage is also a key factor. Always looking ahead, Clinisys is observing today’s data storage systems evolving into data-aware systems by federating data processing to move application-specific processing closer to data, minimising data in motion and giving rise to concepts like Edge computing.
Ultimately, data-centric computing systems will be able to auto-discover, classify, and transform data more efficiently, enabling faster data discovery, data processing, data transformation, and predictive analytics, thereby enabling increasingly sophisticated modeling and simulations.
Your lab’s data-centric journey
Your journey toward data-centric laboratory computing begins with Clinisys Laboratory Solutions. Clinisys gives you the freedom to handle data in a way that best suits your unique requirements, fostering agility, collaboration, and adaptability in an ever-evolving healthcare and scientific landscape. Begin to harness the true value of your data.
Let’s start a conversation on how our data-centric approach can elevate your laboratory operations, foster innovation, and pave the way for groundbreaking scientific progress. Connect with us today to redefine the future of your lab’s computing capabilities.
1 Agerwala,T. Data Centric Systems: The Next Paradigm in Computing. IBM Research. (2014). https://hosting.cs.vt.edu/icpp-conf/2014/agerwala.html
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