Laboratory Sample Tracking

It is not difficult to understand why laboratory sample tracking is necessary, but what should the

laboratory be looking for when it comes to choosing the right software?

Laboratories perform a vital function in our society, although many of us will never know what

we contribute to the average laboratory’s storage area in a given year. For instance, a visit to the

doctor, an arrest on almost any charges, a new job, or enrollment in a new school/university can

all be reasons that blood is drawn, urine is tested, hair follicles are examined, or other bodily

samples or fluids are scrutinized. Each of these types of tests—and one sample can lead to a

dozen different tests—results in a laboratory sample.

It is definitely not a surprise that laboratories use specific software to label, track, store, and

monitor any type of sample. Laboratory sample tracking has evolved from the days where people

had to more or less guess what was what and where it was kept, and today’s software makes it

easier to determine results, location, handling, and categorization. This makes it efficient and

safe to store thousands of different samples at any time, in addition to giving the laboratory staff

easy access to the sample whenever necessary.

Storage Information

One of the key components of this type of sample tracking for laboratories is maintenance of

certain critical source information. For instance, when a person visits the doctor and has blood

drawn, there is a patient name, date, record number, and result associated with that sample, in

addition to the name of the doctor, practice address, and other contact information. The

laboratory analyzes the sample, returns the result to the doctor, and stores the right information

in the right place for future reference.

Customized Reports

Another important factor is the report generated by each sample, such as the example situation

given above. The doctor in question—or one of his/her staff members—will receive a report that

is related to a particular laboratory sample. With high-quality laboratory sample tracking, a

customized report is generated that can be duplicated in case of unforeseen difficulty. That way,

if a fax machine gets jammed or something gets lost in the mail, the report can be duplicated and

the results still sent to the right place upon request.

Replication Capabilities

Laboratories often have massive quantities of the same types of samples, and the sample tracking

software must offer replication capabilities for that reason. As more of the same types of samples

are collected, they can be stored in the same area without fear of confusing samples. The

software can offer the same type of label for a different vial of blood, for instance, and store the

similar sample in the same place as other blood samples. When the result is ready for that

particular sample, it can easily be located using the information on the label and returned to the

appropriate sender or facility or stored for later use.

About The Author:

BSI Systems provides laboratory sample tracking software for specimen inventory management.