Friday, June 8, 2018

Understanding LIMS And How They Help Laboratories

By Andrew Thompson


Virtually every lab that has ever existed has incorporated the use of what's called a laboratory information management system. The common abbreviation for this kind of thing is LIMS, which is helpful to know for anyone going into a laboratory setting for the first time and encountering this acronym. There are also other common names for the same type of system, such as LIS for laboratory information system, as well as LMS for laboratory management system.

The reason why everyone in the scientific community has to know about these types of things is that it would be impossible to find a single working lab today that doesn't have one. The reason for this is that scientific research laboratories nowadays have to go through so much information that there is no possibility that all of the data would be able to be tracked properly without one. It's not just about making the life of the scientists easier; it's about reaching new heights of scientific understanding, to help mankind in all kinds of different ways.

One of the ways that an information system like this is extremely helpful is by keeping track of all the workflow that goes on in the facility. This is essential to fully understand the results of a research project, and it can be the difference between having a successful experiment and having compromised results. Knowing what happened and when is a big help.

What often happened before these types of advanced tools were possible is that some information was inevitably lost in the sea of chicken-scratch handwriting and mountains of files. No matter how diligent an organizer you are, there comes a point where manual data input has too much room for inaccuracy. Having something like this that puts all of the information automatically into the same place that is safe and secure has made accuracy in laboratories much higher.

While every laboratory has this kind of system in order to serve a standard suite of purposes, these tools can also be extremely helpful in specialty laboratory situations. This means research facilities that are working in a specific area of science and research. This usually calls for customized information systems to help keep track of the data in the most efficient and helpful way possible.

Information systems have changed a lot over the years. Mainly, they have become much more advanced. This is both due to the help of science and due to the advancing needs of scientists.

The very first laboratory systems for tracking information were basically just sample trackers. This may seem like a very basic purpose when compared to how they're used today, but this was an essential tool for scientists everywhere. It's amazing to think of how much these tools can do for us now.

In the same way that science itself differs in many ways between the various branches it has, laboratories and scientists themselves also come in many different varieties. This is bound to create many opportunities for differences in opinions, and the opinion for what makes an LIS what it is is one of those divergences. It is good to get to know what constitutes an information system in the lab you're working in before accidentally misunderstanding what is being said.




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