Difference between revisions of "User:Shawndouglas/sandbox/sublevel4"

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For a LIMS implementation to be most successful in a clinical lab, it must properly plan for it and have critical buy-in from core stakeholders. This is most effectively accomplished through change management strategies that help the lab understand, plan for, implement and communicate the change a LIMS will bring. Understanding is brought about by defining the goals and envisioned successes associated with the LIMS, and what steps that will need to be taken to achieve those successes. Planning involves garnering management and other stakeholder buy-in to those goals and successes and defining LIMS implementation scope and responsibility. Implementing change requires establishing success indicators, identifying training requirements, appointing key support personnel for the LIMS, and tracking and acting upon laboratorians’ concerns and criticisms. Finally, communicating change — one of the most critical aspects of change management — involves finding the right tone, relevance, and clarity to the change you’re prescribing to the lab. That communication should highlight the other three components of change management, while imparting a tone of awareness of and desire to change, as well as practical knowledge about how to implement and sustain the change in the long term.
Ideally, the clinical laboratory will want any implemented LIMS to be structured to fit the laboratory’s workflow, but not in a way that boxes the lab in. The base LIMS should contain key pieces that suit most any clinical laboratory but be flexible enough to allow the lab to match and adjust the system workflows to the lab’s unique daily requirements. No two labs are exactly the same, after all. 
 
In order for the LIMS to be configured to your workflow requirements, your lab will need to be able to fully understand and describe those workflow steps to the vendor. This means working through your entire process, including accessioning, preparing, and testing specimens; retrieving results from instruments (eliminating the need of manual data entry); reviewing and approving results; ordering re-runs if necessary; and reporting final results as required. Secondarily, this means advising the vendor about all these details up-front, and later describing what does and doesn’t work for you when implementing the LIMS. Clearly communicating these aspects to the vendor before and during implementation is more effective than simply hoping the system will alleviate any workflow issues as they arise post-implementation. When all is said and done, your lab should have an ideal LIMS at its fingertips, one that is flexible enough to not only address today’s workflows but also the workflows of tomorrow.

Revision as of 17:22, 10 March 2022

Ideally, the clinical laboratory will want any implemented LIMS to be structured to fit the laboratory’s workflow, but not in a way that boxes the lab in. The base LIMS should contain key pieces that suit most any clinical laboratory but be flexible enough to allow the lab to match and adjust the system workflows to the lab’s unique daily requirements. No two labs are exactly the same, after all.

In order for the LIMS to be configured to your workflow requirements, your lab will need to be able to fully understand and describe those workflow steps to the vendor. This means working through your entire process, including accessioning, preparing, and testing specimens; retrieving results from instruments (eliminating the need of manual data entry); reviewing and approving results; ordering re-runs if necessary; and reporting final results as required. Secondarily, this means advising the vendor about all these details up-front, and later describing what does and doesn’t work for you when implementing the LIMS. Clearly communicating these aspects to the vendor before and during implementation is more effective than simply hoping the system will alleviate any workflow issues as they arise post-implementation. When all is said and done, your lab should have an ideal LIMS at its fingertips, one that is flexible enough to not only address today’s workflows but also the workflows of tomorrow.