Clinical Information Systems

Laboratory information systems (LIS), also known as laboratory information management systems (LIMS), are data and information management systems designed specifically for industrial and medical-related laboratories, including clinical and analytical laboratories. These include research and development labs, in-process testing labs and quality assurance labs. The focus of this report is on the market for LIS for clinical health care labs and pharmaceutical drug discovery laboratories, although other aspects of drug research and development labs are mentioned.

In many cases, LIS products can be differentiated from LIMS products based on their specialized orientation to the medical, health care, and clinical marketplaces. In its simplest form, a LIS connects the analytical instrumentation in a lab to one or more workstations or personal computers (PCs).

As instruments collect data, their interfaces forward the data from the instrument systems to the computer, where software analyzes and organizes the data into meaningful information. This information is organized into various report formats based upon the type of report required. A complete LIS will manage lab data ranging from sample log-in to reporting the results. Initially, LIS were developed in-house by organizations that sought to streamline their data acquisition and reporting processes. But a LIS developed in-house can take considerable time and resources to implement. The need for a more immediate solution helped drive LIS in the 1970s when custom-built systems became available. These early systems were designed to run in specific laboratories. More recently, the need for speed has led to the launch of new models with greater capacitance.