LABORATORY INFORMATICS


LIMS adapt to viral testing


RESPONSE TO COVID-19 IS HELPING TO DEVELOP TESTING TECHNOLOGY THAT WILL HAVE FAR- REACHING BENEFITS BEYOND THE GLOBAL VIRAL OUTBREAK, FINDS ROBERT ROE


With the world’s focus on the COVID-19 pandemic LIMS providers are working to develop


solutions tailored to assist in the testing and management of virus samples. By streamlining processes, increasing connectivity and reducing manual data entry samples can be tested more efficiently and more accurately. Edward Krasovec, director of clinical


solutions at LabWare, commented on the firm’s work to provide health aurothitites and laboratories with this new mobile field testing kit: ‘We have developed an extension of our platform that takes advantage of some of the capabilities that we have for mobile devices and we call it our portable app. We developed this solution in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, this is a kit that can be used out on the field to facilitate specimen collection.


‘Specimen management is very familiar


to us but now we are providing a kit that includes tablet devices, a hotspot to enable connectivity to our cloud, a battery pack, wireless label printer and an optional portable analyser, which can do Covid-19 testing,’ added Krasovec. Krasovec noted that, in a recent pilot test, the Florida Department of Health


16 Scientific Computing World Summer 2020


used the kit as part of a drive-through testing centre to screen for potential Covid-19 infection. ‘They would have done all the data collection for the patients that are driving up on paper forms, but now they are using a tablet device to register patient demographics. They put the label on the specimen and that specimen is ready to be tested when it gets to the lab,’ stated Krasovec. Krasovec added that there is ‘an


opportunity to do triage questions, asking them details about their symptoms’ but this was not used for the Covid-19 pilot test. ‘We are using the tablet to collect


information at the point of interaction with the patient with the interoperability capabilities to forward that information to the lab. This eliminates manual data entry


“We are using the tablet to collect information at the point of interaction with the patient”


at the point of interaction with the patient and at the laboratory,’ said Krasovec. ‘As we have been working with the


Florida DoH, I was down there a few weeks ago and we were working with them on piloting this project and I got to accompany some nurses going out to do specimen collection at a retirement community – we swabbed 10 patients that they were doing for Covid testing.’ Manual data entry can lead to serious


errors, meaning that samples cannot be tested or that the specimens cannot be traced back to the correct source. When dealing with healthcare, this means


potentially very sick patients missing out on results from their tests. Krasovec explained that, while working with the Florida Department of Health, he had the chance to accompany nurses to a retirement home where they were carrying out tests. ‘We swabbed 10 patients that they were doing for Covid testing. Eight of the 10 were repeat samples because, for whatever reason, a specimen was collected in the lab. Presumably it got tested but the result never materialised so they had to start all over again,’ explained Krasovec.


John Gabathuler, director of industrial


and environmental at LabWare, also highlighted the importance of removing errors from manual data entry processes. ‘They are processes that have not been there previously. They have had to set these processes up and therefore they are going through them for the first time, or they are not as tried and tested so the chances of systems not getting the right information can exacerbate problems. With the current situation you want to be as accurate as you possibly can, as fast as you possibly can, because people’s lives depend on it. ‘We are trying to help by putting


automated software processes in place to help capture these things that may be


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