National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (in Dutch RIVM) selected iVention to deliver iLESLIMS for the Neonatal Bloodspot Prick Screening (NHS)

Zwolle, July 2018 – iVention is proud to announce that RIVM via a European Tender has chosen iLES as their new LIMS for NHS to replace the current LIMS system.

“The assignment is an essential milestone in our ambition to increase our presence in the Healthcare industry. The winning bid proves that our innovative approach provides great benefits to organizations like RIVM in their search for a more flexible, configurable and future-proof NHS LIMS. As oursystem is based on the latest technologies it offers unrestricted scalability and brings down the total cost of ownership”, says Oscar Kox, CEO of iVention.

The Neonatal heel prick screening is a nationwide screening program for babies in the first week after birth. Annually approximately 170.000 newborns in the Netherlandsreceive the heel prick. The heel prick screening is the longest running nationwidescreening program in public healthcare in the Netherlands.

The analysis of the heel prick blood provides important information about currently 19 rare, often hereditary,serious diseases. Early detection of these diseases is crucialto limit or prevent serious damage to health by timely treatment of babies that are born mostly symptomless. The blood testsare performed by five screening laboratories, of which the laboratory of the RIVM acts as a reference laboratory. The screening laboratories are responsible for the analysis of the heel prick blood and adequate reporting of the results. High demands are placed on the reliability and quality of the blood tests. The analyses must be carried out in a timely manner and with great care.

In July 2015, the Minister ofVWS took up the recommendation of the Health Council to add 14 disordersto the screening program. With the expansion plans of the heel prick program  to 31 diseases the number of functionalities and complexity will increase significantly. As the current LIMS system is not sufficiently equipped for these changes replacement is necessary. Therefore RIVM published a European Public tender for the delivery, implementation and maintenance of a LIMS for neonatal heel prick screening.

The European tender for this NHS project started early 2017 and finally 4 vendors were selected for a final proposal and a dedicated demonstration to show their fit to the RIVM requirements. Critical elements in the delivery of the new NHS-LIMS include integration with lab equipment, interpretation functionality (decision rules), and the administrative process support system. The full digitalization of theinformation on the heel prick card with a mobile App has been determined as a potential added value for the near future. Finally iVention was selected as the best qualified partner for the assignment. The agreement was signed on July 5th at RIVM in Bilthoven.

About RIVM:

How can we keep ourselves and our environment healthy? That is the challenge facing government authorities at all levels, from the local to the international. The Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) conducts research and provides advice to assist them in this task.

RIVM works to prevent and control outbreaks of infectious diseases. We promote public health and consumer safety, and we help to protect the quality of the environment. RIVM collects and collates knowledge and information from various sources, both national and international. We apply this knowledge ourselves, and we place it at the disposal of policy-makers, researchers, regulatory authorities and the general public. Each year, RIVM produces numerous reports on all aspects of public health, nutrition and diet, health care, disaster management, nature and the environment. RIVM has a total of approximately 1,500 staff and their headquarters is in Bilthoven (NL).

About iVention:

iVention provides laboratories in a wide range of industries with a modern Lab Execution System that combines LIMS, ELN and SDMS features in a single Informatics Platform.The powerful iLES Platform is fully web based, highly flexible and scalableand can be easily deployed from the Cloud and used on any mobile device. iVention is ISO 27001 certified and all our applications are compliant with Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) as well as 21 CFR part 11 guidelines.