How to Explain the Increasing Use of the Term LIMS Instead of LIS

For about the last four decades, the termlaboratory information system (LIS) has been used to describe computer systems installed in hospital pathology departments. By way of comparison, the termlaboratory information management system (LIMS) was used to refer to systems installed in research laboratories and in industrial labs such as those associated with food processing. About five years ago, I began to hear pathology informaticians with a molecular and genomic lab background refer to the hospital lab systems as LIMSs. This made some sense to me given their connections in research. It's now commonplace in articles to see references to hospital lab systems as LIMSs (see:Next-Generation Laboratory Information Management Systems Will Deliver Medical Laboratory Test Results and Patient Data to Point of Care...). Even Sunquest, a best-of-breed LIS vendor, refers to its recently released genetic analysis and molecular system,Mitogen, as a LIMS.So what's going on? First of all, Sunquest is marketing Mitogen to the molecular and genetic pathologists who favor the term LIMS, as noted above. Secondly, Sunquest is also marketing it to molecular/genetic reference labs whose executives, I suspect, favor the LIMS term. However, I think that something much more important is happening in the LIS/LIMS market which involves Epic and its LIS called Beaker. Beaker is achieving some success in the LIS market because Epic has gained a high measure of acceptance for its EHR in hosp...
Source: Lab Soft News - Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Tags: Clinical Lab Industry News Clinical Lab Testing Electronic Health Record (EHR) Genomic Testing Healthcare Information Technology Hospital Executive Management Lab Industry Trends LIS Definitions and Strategy LIS Vendor News Pathology Inf Source Type: blogs