Friday 25 May 2018

What An LIMS Is And How It's Used

By Karen Smith


This is the common abbreviation for what is known in the scientific community as a lab information management system. A LIMS might also be called a lab information system, or a lab management system, abbreviated as LIS and LMS respectively. Although there are some differences between these, they are all basically the same thing.

These information systems are types of software that are used in all modern laboratories around the world. In order to manage all of the data and information that these sophisticated and complex facilities go through on a daily basis, these systems play a crucial role. The job of software like this is to support all of the many different operations that the lab undergoes, making higher levels of research not only possible but also much easier.

Workflow is a big task that these programs are expected to take care of. There is also an incredible amount of data that goes into them which is used in a number of different ways. Depending on the type of lab, there are many other tasks that software like this might be used for.

Management systems have been around in many different forms over the years, but as science has become more advanced, so too have these systems. In the beginning, they were just used to track samples and not much else. Nowadays, the systems are used as highly advanced programs that can put huge amounts of data together at speeds people of yesteryear could only dream of.

Although there is a general consensus on what an information system for a laboratory is, people don't always agree on some of the finer aspects of what defines this type of program. People have to use their own interpretation to see what the definition means to them personally. It is important to know what a certain kind of laboratory defines as an information system as opposed to other kinds.

There are a number of different categories that these systems are put in, but it is easy to see that the main purposes remain the same across all of them. The specific needs of some labs have led to some that have special tools to look at commercial and research aspects. Others are mainly for the clinical and forensic side of things.

As laboratory sciences have grown more advanced, the uses of information management systems have grown immensely since they were first used. One of the big ways it helps researchers is by bringing together the different core branches of science. Some of the ways that these systems' uses have become more advanced have caused the different types to become more similar in use.

When things had to be entered manually in a lab, there were many things that could go wrong. A single error in the transcription of data could be disastrous. This is why having things automatically recorded removes the potential for a huge amount of errors to be made.




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