Laboratory information system vendors on where their focus is

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November 2018—Six of the 30 companies that have LISs listed in the laboratory information systems product guide tell us what you, our readers, want from your LIS and what they want you to know about them.

What is your company hearing from its customers, in terms of laboratory wants and needs?

Curt Johnson, chief operating officer, Orchard Software: The biggest request we get from clients and prospective clients revolves around integration, which takes many forms depending on the type of laboratory and its needs. For example, it could be hospitals or large integrated delivery networks trying to solve the integration problem of point-of-care testing. It could be toxicology labs trying to deliver sophisticated reports to their clients and integrate them into their client systems. It could be other large health care conglomerates or independent reference labs trying to integrate multiple disparate EMRs or EHRs. This connectivity is the primary goal of our clients. In response, we try to enhance their ability to meet their needs and their clients’ needs.

Rick Callahan, vice president of sales and marketing, NovoPath: Many of the labs that are considering purchasing an LIS are looking for diversity in specialization of the LIS. By this I mean they want their LIS to be adaptable to a wide range of applications and instrumentation that support the lab’s existing test menu as well as provide the capability to support an expanded test menu for future growth and stability.

With the transition taking place in our marketplace and the expansion of specialty testing, the LIS’ capability to adapt to a variety of specialties has become an increasingly valuable asset to our clients.

Gilbert Hakim, chief executive officer, SCC Soft Computer: The message from our customers is that they do not want to have third-party modules within their labs. They want one vendor to cover the lab end-to-end. They want a single database, single patient record, across all modules—CP, AP, blood services, genetics, outreach; integration to the EMR; and no third-party middleware, which adds to the time of releasing results. Users also want to save the cost of middleware and its maintenance, which is increasing dramatically.

Customers also want us to provide a software-as-a-service model of application, including cloud-based services on all modules. This reduces their in-house maintenance requirements because the client doesn’t have to worry about hardware maintenance backups or disaster recovery since it is covered through cloud services. Our customers want relief from all that extra work because they don’t have the staff to do it. Some have even approached us to take over or help them with LIS in-house staff; they want us to augment their staff in that regard, and we have started doing that. When we provide wet lab workflow automation through SCC’s workflow engine and directly connect to the instrumentation and robotics, we improve productivity and turnaround time in the lab.

Lori Cross, senior director, solution executive, Cerner: Customers want to provide value through their LIS. They want to make a difference in patient outcomes, partly by helping caregivers get the information they need from their EHRs. That requires integration with EHRs in an integrated and interfaced setting. Examples of potential integrated workflows, Cerner-supported, include an ability to compare a patient’s susceptibility testing results in microbiology to the patient’s medication profile, and to notify the physician if the patient has been or is being prescribed a drug to which the bug is resistant. Or an ability to notify a radiologist that a patient’s kidney function tests are subpar and the radiology tech should change to an alternative contrast media.

Our labs tell us they no longer want to work in silos. Their old LISs were silos in themselves. That is all changing. Labs want immediate and relevant access to the patient’s care record so pathologists have the information they need.

Other devices and systems being installed in laboratories are also evolving. As they evolve, sometimes the need to provide information to the LIS and EHR is forgotten. An organization could pay $2 million for a huge microbiology automation system, for example, and find that its LIS can’t talk to it. Customers want device validation; the last thing a hospital wants in this era of decreased reimbursement and skyrocketing costs is a huge paperweight sitting on their loading dock because they can’t integrate that system with their LIS. Cerner offers a device validation program for manufacturers that can work through the integration processes and workflows before a device or system even hits the market.

Joe Nollar, associate vice president, product development, Xifin: The LIS should be viewed as a critical strategic component to the lab’s overall revenue growth strategy. Customers want flexibility to grow their business without being constrained by technology. Labs need to be able to create new revenue models, whether through easily expanding their existing test menu, launching new testing modalities or specialized assays, performing clinical trials, outreach, or through technical and professional split collaborations with customers.

Our largest growth area in the past year has been in next-generation sequencing. Many labs have been involved in developing next-generation sequencing assays for research and want to take them commercial and/or supply the test for clinical trials. They need a system that can adapt to the commercial market or for clinical trials. They don’t want to have to buy another LIS/LIMS or software package just to manage their clinical trials cases. They want flexible, configurable tool sets that can adapt to any type of testing, and they want user-configurable tools to handle their specialized testing, such as next-generation sequencing, and clinical trials testing.

Michelle Del Guercio, vice president, marketing, Sunquest Information Systems: At our annual user group meeting last August, customers talked about pain points impacting their organization and what is most important to them. They focused on lab expertise, interoperability across systems, and their need to expand into areas such as precision medicine, molecular, and outreach.