Invention:
Inventors at the University of Arizona have developed a clinical intake and orders management system for use with laboratory information management systems (LIMS). The invention is a portal, for use by clinicians and related staff, to place and manage orders for specific tests. The software is capable of interfacing with various LIMS. In effect, it bridges the gap between clinicians placing orders, tracking the order through wet labs (via the LIMS), and returning results to clinicians. It also allows for profile management of physicians, clinical staff, and even patients’ health insurance and other payment information.
Background:
Clients are increasingly demanding systems that can be configured or customized to meet specific demands. Unfortunately, many current LIMS lack a proper interface for clients to easily place and manage their orders. This technology was devised as an effort to improve the digital infrastructure of the University of Arizona Genetics Core as they moved into personalized medicine in addition to non-clinical research. In order to comply with HIPAA and manage new types of information, this new system was developed for use as an add-on to pre-existing LIMS to make it easier for clinicians to make use of the Genetic Core’s services.
Applications:
- LIMS and LIMS-like software
- Any software-centric management systems involving customer ordering
Advantages:
- Potential to be adapted to add an externally focused customer portal for order intake to any software system (ex. online storefronts)
- Potential to interface with inventory management and delivery systems
- Can be adapted to add a client-side portal for placing orders
- Interfaces with any LIMS with a minimum of retooling
- Enables configuration and/or customization to meet specific customer demands
- Developed using the open source frameworks Django and AngularJS, meaning there are no secondary licensing fees or other obstacles for commercial use
- Framework can be rewritten to suit any particular programming environment without incurring major redevelopment costs
- Designed to function in a HIPAA-compliant manner
