Marion County Health Department Steps Up Investments in Advanced Laboratory Automation Technologies

The Health Department focuses on advanced information technologies to support bioterrorism preparedness and public health emergency response initiatives in Indianapolis.

The Marion County Health Department (MCHD) announced plans today for a major upgrade to its information technology infrastructure within its public health laboratories. The project involves implementation of HORIZON Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) to address post-9/11 federal regulations, as well as Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) data management requirements for public health laboratories.

The Marion County Health Department serves the public health needs of Indianapolis, the nation’s 12th largest city. MCHD laboratories provide analytical support for communicable disease clinics in local health departments, conduct population-based disease surveillance and perform a variety of environmental monitoring and responses to outbreaks.

“The events of September 11th placed additional demands on the public health community to improve the exchange of data within and between public agencies, law enforcement and the CDC. HORIZON LIMS, developed by ChemWare Inc. of Raleigh, North Carolina, will dramatically improve the Marion County Health Department’s preparedness to respond to public health threats and emergencies,” said Virginia A. Caine, M.D., director, Marion County Health Department.

“Our strategy is to partner with best-of-breed solution providers in the areas of laboratory automation, data security and data collaboration,” remarked Matthew Matusiak, PhD., director, public health laboratories for the Marion County Health Department. “The Marion County Health Department is a mission-critical operation, and the health and welfare of the general public depends on our ability to deliver accurate test results in the most flexible and efficient manner possible,” said Matusiak.

ChemWare’s Vice President, Robert Whitehead, added, “Public health laboratories all over the country, indeed the world, are facing enormous pressure to improve early detection and response to public health issues and potential emergencies. Our experience in automating some of the largest environmental, clinical and chemical agent testing laboratories in the country – disciplines shared by many public health laboratories – is directly applicable in addressing the complex data and knowledge management issues faced by the Marion County Health Department.”

HORIZON LIMS provides advanced laboratory automation and scientific data management capabilities designed to address the wide variety of sample sources, test methods, instruments, data types and data messaging protocols common to public health laboratories. HORIZON is a trademark of ChemWare, Inc. Waters, NuGenesis, and NuGenesis SDMS are trademarks of Waters Corporation.

About Health and Hospital Corporation
The Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County (HHC) oversees the operation of the Marion County Health Department. HHC is a municipal corporation that also oversees the operation of Wishard Health Services, including Wishard Memorial Hospital. A seven-member Board of Trustees whose members are appointed by the Mayor of Indianapolis, the City-County Council and Marion County Commissioners governs the corporation.

About ChemWare, Inc.
ChemWare, a North Carolina-based software development company founded in 1987, provides high scalability/high availability information management solutions to the world’s most highly automated life sciences laboratories, over ninety percent of which produce data subject to litigation. In a recent independent, CDC-sponsored study, HORIZON received the highest overall ranking of LIMS targeted for public health laboratories.

www.chemware.com