What’s Important in Selecting a CellPath LIMS
If you are about to embark on going out to tender to find a CellPath LIMS supplier, what are the criteria you should consider in choosing a vendor? Sam Grobler, CliniSys product manager, offers some key recommendations.
1. Digital Pathology
This provides the ability to present digital images and having access and reporting on them from different areas of the globe and in different time zones. Having digital capability can significantly reduce turnaround times on pathology workload if, for instance, a specialist is located elsewhere globally from the laboratory. This creates an international 24 hour work routine.
Ability to share slides and communicate within a specialist group of pathologists, in real time, greatly reduces turnaround times. This needs a central laboratory information management system that is able to cope with sharing the data as part of the laboratory IT system.
Currently, there is a shortage of pathologists, which is compounded by the fact that not every pathologist specialises in every tissue. So we need specialists to be easily able to see the slides relevant to them. Giving them access to digital pathology ensures that the best and most appropriate person that you need is looking at the specimen.
2. Integrated reporting within LIMS
Another area of focus is ensuring there is the ability for production of an integrated report, collating results from multiple different areas. Another hugely valuable function of a LIMS for a pathologist is being able to see all pertinent information about a patient in one place without wasting time having to dig around in multiple different systems looking for a patient’s treatment history.
When reporting on a patient you want to see if the patient has had any other treatment, and if there are any results from other disciplines outside pathology, such as radiology. Genetics testing too is becoming more and more valuable within the resulting of a case.
We are beginning to see a large requirement in the UK, US and Australia to be able to register that a sample has been collected in the LIMS from a third party like the order comms system or hospital information system.
You want a LIMS system in which the key order information arrives without having people interact with it or chase up to find where the sample was taken, when and who took it. You also want a LIMS that sends out the results to all the pertinent people, not just the requesting clinicians but also regulatory bodies and bodies such as cancer services.
3. Track and Trace
This is the ability to track within your LIMS. You need a LIMS system that is going to track and trace specimens around the network. Currently third party systems are being used for track and trace but they are very limited and do not track all the way through the process.
The LIMS needs to track and trace from beginning to end and also in between, if specimens are moving from lab to lab. You need a LIMS that can scale up and scale down as much as you want it to, and that has the flexibility to work say only with CellPath but then also with very large networks with other disciplines.
Your LIMS should also be able to take the capacity and pressure that the laboratory is under. Some labs are doing only ten samples a week, some are doing 2,000 a day. You need that scalability.
4. Workflow
Ideally, you want an ability for the overall process within the laboratory to be captured in the LIMS. Monitoring what is going on is much easier if it is captured in the LIMS in one place, it’s hugely valuable.
5. Integration
There should be integration of the LIMS generally, such as with hospital systems, slide strainers, and cassette labellers, but keeping the laboratory process and the laboratory integration separate is important, particularly with CellPath. There are though differing approaches on this in the UK compared with Europe.
A future road map
There have been so many changes in recent years in areas such as digital pathology and testing techniques, that you want a LIMS that is going to deliver not just now but also in ten years time. So look for a system that has a strategic eye on the future.
Support national reporting functionality
Lastly, your LIMS needs to be able to capture and maintain national reporting functionality and supporting delivery of SNOMED CT and national catalogues incorporation.