A laboratory information system (LIS) is arguably a lab’s most powerful tool, especially when it is leveraged to its maximum potential. Used properly, the LIS can greatly improve laboratory productivity, efficiency, and patient safety. By careful configuration of analyzer and EHR interfaces, designing specific rules, using tracking features, and automating reporting and metrics, the LIS makes the job of laboratory professionals easier, allowing their expertise to be focused on tasks that require human interaction. Below are the three areas where an LIS can make a big impact on your laboratory’s level of efficiency.
1. Enable Workflow Management Improvements
As part of an effective laboratory workflow, instrument and system integration provides an automatic and seamless data flow, allowing your laboratory to improve patient care by reducing errors, saving time, and speeding up result delivery. Connectivity is a critical component in both centralized and decentralized labs. Laboratory analyzers should be connected through the LIS to your EHR, allowing test results to be stored and shared across facilities automatically.
Many LISs include audit trails and sample tracking features that provide laboratories the tools to organize and track laboratory samples and specimens throughout the testing continuum. A sample tracking tool can organize and track the storage of laboratory samples to allow easier retrieval. By automating these features, your laboratory has the required documentation to track a specimen from start to finish for a regulatory inspection.
Management of workflow within a large-scale laboratory is critical. Many tests (especially in microbiology, molecular, and pathology) involve numerous steps performed by multiple people over the course of many hours or days. The LIS can provide an advanced workflow process engine to help laboratory personnel know what stage of the workflow each order is in.
2. Apply Rules to Automate Processes & Decisions
Throughout the entire testing process, from pre-analytical to post-analytical, robust LISs can be set up to automatically trigger rules that make life in the laboratory much easier. In support of laboratory stewardship, the LIS can allow laboratory professionals to work closely with ordering providers to eliminate obsolete or nonvalue-added testing and avoid unnecessary test combinations, contributing to overall improvements in the quality of patient care.
Configurable rules improve workflow efficiency and error-proofing by aiding in decision-making throughout the total testing process. This ensures the consistent execution of procedures and increases the productivity of your laboratory.
Example Pre-analytical Rules
- Eliminate duplicate orders or tests not appropriate for a patient
- Split an order based on sample handling or batch testing
- Route tests to outside labs based on reimbursements
- Automatically print labels when reflex testing is indicated
Example Analytical Rules
- Automate reflex testing
- Auto-schedule and auto-verify acceptable QC
- Prevent release of results without acceptable QC
- Schedule reminder messages for maintenance, linearity testing, etc.
Example Post-analytical Rules
- Automate venipuncture charges
- Consolidate or change billing codes based on testing conditions
- Schedule courtesy copies of results
- Automate fax and email of invoices and requisitions
- Automate report delivery based on certain conditions
- Auto-verify “normal” results
Auto-verification Rules Save Time
For example, you can configure auto-verification rules that allow results that are considered normal to be released without technologist intervention, saving a tremendous amount of time. Depending on your lab menu and patient population, 40% to 80% of results could qualify for auto-verification. Auto-verification rules also provide consistent test reporting with dramatic improvements in turnaround time (TAT) and reductions in error rates.
Washington Health System, a longtime Orchard Software customer, uses auto-verification as a productivity booster. “Auto-verification setup was easy in hematology because the flags are defined, and the rules are easy to write. We auto-validate about 80% of results in hematology,” said Carrie Lough, LIS Specialist.
“We’ve implemented auto-approval in our hematology department. For an oncology clinic that’s reporting 400 to 500 CBCs a day, to not have to put eyes on every single one of those samples has been a huge benefit.”
- Genneva Conant, MLS(ASCP), Director of Laboratory Services at Clearview Cancer Institute
For more on the benefits of auto-verification, read the Clearview Cancer Institute customer testimonial.
3. Leverage Metrics for Quality Goals
Laboratories handle an enormous amount of data, much of it vital to patient diagnosis and treatment decisions. Data that lives in your LIS can be shared within your organization to help achieve quality goals, promote population health management, and close care gaps. Use your LIS to set up automated reports to track laboratory metrics on a consistent basis. Metrics such as utilization monitoring, productivity, and TAT tracking can be set up to automatically report to the desired individuals at a specified time and location. This automated process can save valuable time and help the flow of communication.
Read our white paper, Using Your LIS to Improve Laboratory Productivity, for more ideas.
Orchard Enterprise Lab Can Help
Learn how Orchard® Enterprise Lab™ can improve your lab’s efficiency. Orchard Enterprise Lab was developed to support laboratories that need to design specialized workflows to accommodate high-volume testing. The solution provides continuous, real-time monitoring of the testing process, and enables efficient delivery of accurate results that ultimately improve the quality of patient care.