May 13, 2018

Understanding What LIMS Stands For

By Karen Smith


This is the common abbreviation for what is known in the scientific community as a lab information management system. A LIMS might also be called a lab information system, or a lab management system, abbreviated as LIS and LMS respectively. Although there are some differences between these, they are all basically the same thing.

The main thing to know about these types of systems is that they are always computer-based nowadays, since they are a type of software. Every day, labs have many different forms of data and other information that needs to be tracked in real time and kept in a safe, reliable way that the scientists know will be accurate every time. Not only does this enable researchers to perform experiments in studies like they never could before, but it also makes every function of the lab much easier.

This kind of system is absolutely necessary just to track a lab's complicated workflow. Every piece of data that gets recorded in a lab is also highly important. Modern scientists will only trust this job to sophisticated software like this.

The first systems like these were only for tracking samples because that is all that they were able to do. It is amazing to see how far the software has come, leading to the advanced versions of today. There is an immense amount of data that these systems have to go through in order to do everything that modern lab workers need them to.

It is necessary to get to know any given laboratory and the workers there to know what they really mean when they refer to a laboratory information management system. This is often dependent on what kind of studies they are doing in their labs. Knowing this is a big help in understanding why they think of these systems in the way that they do.

While many scientists like to make clear the distinctions between the various type of specialty management systems, they are all basically there for the same reasons. Some, however, do have special tools that help them deal with particular areas of research to help the lab. These can include anything from commercial, research, forensic, and clinical analyses.

The way that systems like these have grown and developed reflects the way that the sciences themselves have been growing and developing over the years. One of the big ways that having this kind of software helps the researchers is in providing a way for them to bring together the main different types of science. In so doing, the uses of different types of systems has become more and more similar over the years.

Entering information manually can often seem like a hassle, but it is hard for the average person to even imagine how difficult it was in laboratories before this automated software existed. Beyond just plain annoying to have to do (and a literal pain for those scientists whose hands cramped up from how much writing they had to do on a daily basis), it also endangered the success of studies because of simple transcription errors. It is much harder to have incorrectly recorded data with this kind of a system.




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