The Checklist For All Lab Info Management Systems: Does Yours Contain Everything It Needs?
Laboratory research is key for finding information that supports a claim, or will support a claim, that a company wants to make about a product it produces. Research is also important for the development of many products. Regardless of the purpose of your company's lab and research, it cannot conduct itself as a fully working department if it does not include laboratory information management systems.
These systems manage the day-to-day tests, samples, data, results, and workflow of the lab. If you are about to set up a lab or need to upgrade the lab your company currently has, here is a checklist of almost every lab info management system in existence. It may need a little tweaking, depending on what your researchers really need, but ultimately, it should have most of the following in order to function as a lab properly.
Software and Hardware
No modern lab can call itself a lab without research computers and software. Info management is often the software used on these computers to file away data, run simulations on tests and data collected, and file everything neatly away for the next work day. Nothing is lost, nothing is transcribed improperly, and nothing is "fudged" when it is all done on the computers using the best research software money can buy.
Centrifuges, Lab Refrigerators, and Other Necessary Equipment
Besides being essential lab equipment, these machines also organize a lab into sections where everything is labeled, in its place, and information can be collected in a manner that is a step-by-step process. Computers are at each of these stations so that the minute a researcher spots a growth in a petri dish in the refrigerator or a sample comes out of the centrifuge with some interesting results, it can be properly noted and recorded.
Computerized, Digitized Microscopes
These modern microscopes are already connected to computers. They are the top-of-the-line machines that can see organisms so small that scientists and researchers have been able to discover things they never knew existed. When conducting research, these microscopes are able to send all images and all data directly to the computer stations connected to them. Researchers can examine the information collected in real time, or open the files later to study what the microscopes collected. Anything not worth saving, or not pertinent to the work the researchers are currently conducting, can be scrapped. If it may be worth a second look later, the software can place the data and images in files labeled as "outlying information."
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