Introducing SampleManager LIMS software’s HL7 capabilities
Thermo Scientific™ SampleManager™ LIMS software introduces HL7 messaging enhancements – part of a suite of product functionality updates in SampleManager LIMS software v21.1 – offering clinical customers an improved scientific experience, with the uncompromising power and flexibility to meet the diverse needs of the clinical laboratory. The software is providing technologists with the ease-of-use software they deserve.
Introducing HL7 features
Updates in SampleManager version 21.1 now include the platform and technology independent capability to let users automate standard workflows and data exchange, to improve workflows for medical transactions and events, helping to affirm clinical data compliance.
HL7 functionality in the software automates the process by having the samples feed seamlessly into the LIMS, allowing the clinical lab technician the ability to now track and store samples for perpetuity. This offers immediate benefits, as the software now provides an automated pathway to push information from the clinical order directly into SampleManager. Results therein are returned to the Electronic Medical Record (EMR)/ Electronic Health Record (EHR) when completed or authorized, ultimately helping the lab to ensure the appropriate healthcare data exchange, with data security, data availability, access control and error notifications contained and in a ready-to-share format.
The HL7 communication in SampleManager uses Mirth Connect – a standard, open-source interface connection between the external application and SampleManager v21.1 – to enable the secure receipt of HL7 request messages. When a technician completes testing, those results are returned automatically to the Mirth Connect system and translated back into an HL7 message to be consumed by the EMR/EHR.
SampleManager software is driven by the collective knowledge of Thermo Fisher Scientific, harnessing insights from subject matter experts in diagnostic testing, clinical laboratory medicine and pathology.
With the additional technical enhancement of HL7 messaging, our LIMS system has been extended with interoperable functionality that can meet the requirements of the accepted industry uniform data standard. Equipped with a trusted LIMS software system, customers can focus on the quality, productivity, and operational efficiency of their clinical lab, and with industry-leading data analytics tools and technologies, Thermo Scientific SampleManager v21.1 LIMS software helps get customer’s clinical science to where it needs to be.
Do I need a LIS, a LIMS, or both?
Clinical lab directors have often had to juggle and compromise on data solutions software, where the choice was typically restrained between a Laboratory Information System, with direct health record integration, or a Laboratory Information Management System, where sample and tests were manually created.
A Laboratory Information System, or LIS, will fill all the needs of a basic diagnostic laboratory. If the primary concern is attributing samples and results to patients and ensuring those results are returned to clinicians for diagnostic purposes, labs should consider a LIS to help stay organized and compliant with HIPAA, CLIA, CAP or a similar regulatory agency.
A Laboratory Information Management System, or LIMS, will help laboratories looking to manage production level testing of samples or specimens and glean insights into the quality of the process or product following ISO 17025 standards and GxP practices.
In the past, the line between needing a LIS or LIMS was clear; today, this line is becoming blurred and even erased. Clinical laboratories are offering more complex testing and outsourcing tests to clinical diagnostic companies. Contract Medical Organizations (CMOs) are handling contract testing for many organizations and need to send results using industry standard HL7 messages. Translational laboratories are looking to build analytical data sets and feed that information downstream to clinical teams and upstream to research scientists. Pathology departments are building complex biorepositories and looking to market and ship materials and implementing GCLP or GMP practices. Diagnostic testing laboratories need a software solution that keeps up with the pace of science itself.
SampleManager LIMS: a fully configurable solution
SampleManager LIMS software v21.1 is a complete, comprehensive solution for lab, data, and process management, and one of the most widely deployed LIMS in the world. Through configuration, not customization, SampleManager can be tailored to the specific clinical processes and laboratory workflows.
As soon as a user logs in to the system, they are immediately presented with samples to work on and can start processing them immediately. Laboratory Execution System (LES) methods will provide visual cues to clinical technicians as they are working on testing batches and following a standard operating procedure. Home pages can be configured for each complex testing requirement – biobanking, flow cytometry, microbiology, chemistry, anatomic pathology, or molecular pathology. This tailored experience in SampleManager LIMS will ensure clinical technologists get the bespoke LIMS solution they need, and not a one-size-fits-all solution.
The software is capable of supporting labs handling complex molecular testing across a variety of sites and physical locations with technologists working 24/7; local language tech support is available in a follow-the-sun approach. All raw data files, Standard operating procedures, and technologist trainings are collated in one system for ease of documentation search during audits, and in-built tools for statistical modelling allow users to quickly perform statistical quality control as part of a quality assurance program.
Please visit our website for more information and resources about the capabilities of SampleManager LIMS or to arrange a demo on the HL7 capabilities in SampleManager LIMS software v21.1 at thermofisher.com/samplemanager.
