NHS Lanarkshire delivers laboratory services from three acute hospital sites.

The health board processes approximately 1.3m requests for laboratory services covering clinical biochemistry, haematology, cellular pathology, microbiology and blood transfusion resulting in around 3.5m reports every year.

Dr Ian Godber, clinical lead for biochemistry said: “A number of disparate laboratory management systems had historically been in operation across the three hospital sites.

“Reconfiguration of these, along with the implementation of a single laboratory management system, offered significant opportunities to improve the efficiency
of services including facilitation of multi-disciplinary working, standardisation of operational workflow and improvements in the quality of service to clinicians and patients.”

NHS Lanarkshire has now appointed Technidata as our new supplier for
the Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) which will help deliver an order communication system (OCS).

Dr Godber continued:“The laboratory staff were very keen to start working with Technidata to implement an integrated laboratory system which would allow NHS Lanarkshire to progress with important developments in diagnostics such as order communications for primary care and the acute sectors.”

LIMS and electronic OCS are able to support all laboratory services provided by NHS Lanarkshire. This includes  clinical biochemistry, haematology, blood transfusion, microbiology and cellular pathology.

Following a successful procurement procedure, the LIMS project is now entering the implementation phase. This is a challenging and complex project which requires expertise from laboratory, eHealth and Technidata combining to establish the project team and work streams that will deliver the new LIMS.

The focus at this stage is very much on preparation and planning to ensure a smooth transition to the new system. This is a particularly exciting time in the project and the project team will continue to provide regular updates to raise awareness of the project objectives and to keep staff abreast of our progress.

Donald Wilson, eHealth general manager, said: “The new LIMS contract will allow the Board to consolidate three separate LIMS on to a single system provided by Technidata.

“Once we have consolidated on a single LIMS, we will start the process of rolling out Order Comms which will enable clinicians across primary and secondary care to electronically request tests and receive their results electronically.

“This will introduce a range of benefits improving patient care.”