Custom Software for the Genomics Industry
In clinical diagnostic labs, quality should be built into the core of the system. Learn how to ensure software quality so that your software supports high quality lab operations.
How to Make a LIMS Support Your Lab’s Unique Workflows Commercial off-the-shelf laboratory information management systems (LIMS) often come with pre-built protocols to help labs get up and running quickly. But if your lab solely relies on these pre-built protocols, you’re missing out on efficiencies that could give your business a competitive advantage. Moving beyond out-of-the-box LIMS functionality While the […]
Day-to-day lab operations rely on workflows to manage people, tasks, and systems so that work follows a consistent process every time. Defined workflows help ensure that all the steps are done in the correct order, are free from errors, and meet regulatory requirements. But, representing lab workflows can be difficult. Without careful definition, you might introduce inaccuracies — such as […]
On the Semaphore Solutions blog, we’ve talked a lot about the importance of a lab’s software stack and strategies for managing multiple software components — some you’ve bought off-the-shelf, some that are fully custom, and some with varying degrees of customization. But one thing we haven’t dug into is version control. This is a key part of managing any complex […]
Building custom laboratory software from the ground up requires robust planning and meticulous attention to detail. In the process of doing this for our clients and ourselves on our forthcoming product, we have developed our own software development best practices to ensure the implementation meets all the requirements. We’ve found this to be a magic mix — user and regulatory […]
Every time we ride a bicycle, drive a car, or travel by plane, we’re faced with the risk of injury. While we can’t completely eliminate all the risks, we can reduce our chances of getting hurt — think bicycle helmets, seat belts, and oxygen masks. Similarly, clinical diagnostic labs have to accept a certain amount of risk (this is known […]
No discussion about software quality would be complete without examining the role of software testing. In the previous post in this series on quality, we mentioned that software testing is a vital part of software quality control (QC). That’s because it’s used to find and prevent defects, ensure performance, and confirm that requirements are met. “Testing is the procedure of […]
Clinical diagnostic laboratories must have high-quality software in order to run reliably and efficiently. But quality is about more than just the software code. Quality must also be the foundation of the software architecture. When labs prioritize the quality of their software and software architecture, ensuring it’s built thoughtfully from the ground up, the quality and maintainability of their processes […]
As we mentioned in our previous post in this series, the quality of your software refers to its ability to meet requirements. There are a variety of metrics you can use to measure quality — with varying degrees of importance depending on who you ask and what aspects you want to measure. Fortunately, a number of standards can guide you, […]
Software quality is a broad topic and often not well understood by clinical diagnostic laboratories, which is why we thought it might be helpful to offer a quick primer. Commonly, the “quality” of software refers only to its ability to meet a set of requirements. But meeting requirements is just one of many metrics for measuring quality and if you […]
Clinical diagnostic laboratories may have business goals that include increasing profits, reducing costs, or accelerating innovation. Continuous improvement is an organized approach to identifying opportunities to achieve these types of goals. What is a continuous improvement pipeline? In our work with clinical labs, we recommend building a continuous improvement pipeline—a repeatable mechanism (often called a “recipe”) for planning and deploying […]