In my organization, the laboratory information system in pathology has been implemented for several years (more than 10 years). The system is used for specimen registration, tissue block sending between lab., slide preparation, reporting diagnosis, consultation. According to long use of this system, it seems to be successful by these following factors:
– data: The storage of data has integrity and accuracy. The timestamp is made in each step of the laboratory process. These data can inquire when users would like to immediately demand.
– cost: This system is developed and maintained by in-house programmers, so the expenditures tend to not be much.
– operation: The system has IT personnel who support when the system has problems.
– design: the system has easy to use interfaces and covers almost all laboratory processes.
– people: the users are satisfied to use this system for several years.
The former statement showed that this system seems to be successful. On the other hand, the system is out of date in some aspects, such as
– old technologies in program coding and databases that cannot be applied to new tasks or services which use the new technologies.
– inappropriate or overlapping process, for example, the system has reporting and approval tasks which are overlapping and may cause confusion when using this data to calculate turn around time.
– some paper-based works that are not stored in the main system, but they are scanned and stored in separate hard drives.
According to these events, this system has to change for updating and supporting the new technologies particularly in the digital era.