The Role of Laboratory Information System in Improving Daily Healthcare Practices
April 14, 2021The laboratory information system has come a long way since its inception and has become a vital component of effectively managing and increasing the pathology department’s efficiency. By standardizing tests, procedures, and workflows of a laboratory, the software enables labs to improve patient care, reduce human errors, and constructively decrease operational costs.
Unlike older times, now there are various laboratory management software that is highly efficient in collecting evidence-based data and analyzing it to provide valuable insights for accurate diagnostics and treatment of the patient. Through this post, we will help you comprehend the use of laboratory information system in daily healthcare practices and how it benefits the growth of your organization.
What Exactly is the Laboratory Information System?
A laboratory management software or system is an IT solution to address regulatory, automation, and data management challenges of laboratories. With its use, the laboratories streamline their daily operations to achieve higher clinical efficiency. Traditionally, this system was only used to keep track of the samples collected by the laboratory.
However, with newer technologies, the healthcare software has now expanded to become an integrated solution for every kind of laboratory need. A basic LIMS (Laboratory Information Management System) manages customer services, invoicing the services undertaken by patients, maintaining the records of samples and tests performed by the laboratory.
Role of a Laboratory Information System
The fundamental role that a laboratory information system plays in a lab is to increase the lab’s operational efficiency by automating the workflows and eliminating the need for manually maintaining the patient’s information. An efficient LIMS can automate operations such as barcode labeling, automated and customized report delivery, specimen tracking, reflex testing, custom report formatting, billing system interfaces, and electronic order entry.
However little these operations may seem, they require a huge amount of staff’s time for completion on a regular basis. Besides, the newly built lab information software is extremely advanced.
Using various algorithms, they analyze the patient and organizational data to derive key insights that help diagnose diseases more accurately and help in projecting required steps for the higher growth of the clinic or hospital.
Features of a Laboratory Management Software
In this modern age of digitization, the features offered by laboratory management software are many. Let us take a look at some of them:
- Recording the Patient Data
The primary use of a laboratory information system is to handle the basic entry procedure of the lab. The software used these days offer multiple ways of recording the patient’s demographics and other medical information. Some of the ways include:
- Manually typing into the LIMS software.
- Capturing data with a voice recognition system.
- Obtaining data from predefined libraries from online servers.
Also Read: Common Issues with Paper-Based Lab Management System & How to Overcome Them
- Specimen Processing
A highly functional feature that is offered in LIMS is specimen processing. Processing of specimens typically takes a large time and keen attention for precise results. When using LIMS, the specimens can be processed effortlessly as per their specific type and order.
After its processing, the specimens are stained according to their requirements and further screened for any abnormalities by the pathologist. The diagnosis is then entered into the software for further analytics.
- Integration with Laboratory Equipments
The most beneficial feature of laboratory management software is its ability to integrate with the different laboratory equipment. LIMS software can directly accept the data from the lab instruments and add it to the case for further processing.
In the case of bidirectional interfaces, orders come directly to the interface from the user’s system. You can also integrate your software with a web-based outreach module using which orders can be directly placed with pertinent patient information.
- Reporting
One of the most crucial aspects of the laboratory is delivering the final report of the patient’s tests done in the lab. The report is considered as the final representation of all the work done in the lab. Hence, it is imperative that the tests conducted must be precise in every aspect to showcase the authenticity of the lab.
A reliable and good laboratory information system software is capable of providing evidence-based, accurate results. Moreover, it helps to deliver reports in a timely manner and the right distribution as ordered by the patients. The reports can be obtained as per the patient’s preference, such as email, EMR system, or print out.
- Patient Accessibility
A big benefit that patients can avail of laboratory information systems is the ease of access to various services of the lab. Whether it is booking of the tests, collection of samples, or getting reports, a lab management system can help you get any of it effortlessly at the comfort of your home.
The patient records, such as medical history, diagnosis, etc., are entered into the system that the patients can access online and can track their health records more conveniently.
Wrapping Up
To achieve higher operational efficiency and significantly improve a lab’s daily healthcare practices, laboratory management software is the optimal solution for any medical organization. A well-designed and properly implemented LIMS structured towards a particular workflow will increase the overall system’s efficiency and provide the patients with improved patient care. SoftClinic’s laboratory management software is a top-notch medical software that is reliable, functional, and full of advanced features to execute all little operations of a laboratory. You may contact their high-end experts for a free demo of the software or to clear any queries regarding your work process.