LabLynx, Inc.

LabLynx, Inc. is a privately owned, funded, and managed American corporation that develops, supports, and markets laboratory information management system (LIMS) solutions. Its most well-known product is webLIMS, a browser-based LIMS offered as a local installation or under a scalable, hosted "software as a service" (SaaS) delivery model. The company’s primary clients include laboratories in the agriculture, clinical, environmental, forensics, health care, and manufacturing industries, including government agencies.^[3] The company is known for introducing one of the first browser-based LIMS products in 1997^[4][5] and being a long-term player in the laboratory informatics market.

History

Before LabLynx was a company, it was a LIMS product offered by Atlanta Systems Consultants, Inc. (ASC).^[6][7] Formed in 1992,^[8] ASC’s LabLynx division later began work on a laboratory information management system designed specifically for a web browser. ASC demonstrated its new Internet Explorer-based LabLynx LIMS at Pittcon in 1997, among the first browser-based LIMS to appear at the time.^[4][5] The company again showcased LabLynx at Pittcon in 1998^[9] and soon after picked up a major LIMS-based contract with the U.S. Customs Service.^[10]

LabLynx home office

By July 2000, the LabLynx division of ASC separated to become its own incorporated entity.^[1] And while ASC eventually ceased to exist in 2005,^[8] LabLynx, Inc. went on to diversify its offerings. The LabLynx’s browser-based LIMS previously demonstrated at Pittcon in 1997 expanded to become ELab, which in 2001 took on an application service provider (ASP) model of distribution.^[11] In 2004 LabLynx released a browser-based tool called openLIMS, which gave consultants and end-users the ability "to build custom LIMS solutions that are geared to the exact operational needs of many different laboratories."^[12]

On June 19, 2006, LabLynx established the Laboratory Informatics Institute, an open membership group with the purpose of advancing the field of laboratory informatics and shaping the standards associated with it.^[13] LabLynx made further moves to better its LIMS offerings in August 2008, renewing and expanding its contract with Nagarro, Inc., a U.S.-based technology consulting firm. The collaboration allowed LabLynx to upgrade its existing LIMS software to .NET architecture and expand its initiative to create and market a SaaS-based LIMS.^[14] Less than a year after the announced renewed partnership, LabLynx revealed its redeveloped webLIMS product to the public, featuring an SaaS model and additional integration of developer tools to allow users to create and modify modules for the LIMS.^[15][16] This move to a cloud-based SaaS model brought renewed interest in the company’s LIMS, with clients like the Georgia Department of Agriculture^[17] and Cypress Bioscience^[18][19] taking on the new LIMS.

In 2011, LabLynx was involved in an initiative to standardize and structure the transmission of laboratory data that first originates in a LIMS or LIS and then moves to a person's or population of people's electronic health records.^[20] This laboratory results interface (LRI) pilot began in August 2011 and included collaborations with the supported open source project mdDigest and the U.S. Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC).^[21]

In February 2015, LabLynx announced the introduction of HealthCloudPOL, a cloud-based laboratory information system (LIS) for the physician office laboratory (POL), making the basic starter package free to users.^[22]

Community history

Since transitioning from Atlanta Systems Consultants, Inc. to LabLynx, Inc. in 2000, LabLynx has become increasingly active in the laboratory informatics community. Projects that LabLynx has started or been involved in within the community include:

• the Laboratory Informatics Institute, an open trade association with the mission of educating, standardizing, and promoting the laboratory informatics industry^[13]
• LIMSfinder, an online interactive magazine released by the Laboratory Informatics Institute that aims to be "the best resource for information technology in the laboratory"^[23]
• LIMSbook, a LIMS buyer’s guide released by the Laboratory Informatics Institute^[24]
• LIMSforum, a LinkedIn discussion group created to facilitate the exchange of ideas and technical information across the fields of laboratory, science, and health informatics^[25][26]
• LIMSuniversity, an open-access learning resource released by the Laboratory Informatics Institute, targeted towards laboratories and the LIMS community^[27]
• LIMSwiki, a Creative Commons-licensed wiki with the goal of bringing related informatics communities together to maintain a repository of information about the industry^[28]

Products

LabLynx develops, supports, and markets several products for the laboratory, science, and health industries:

ELab

ELab is a laboratory information management system (LIMS) and collection of associated modules developed to help professionals in the scientific community manage data coming into and leaving the laboratory.^[29] The original LabLynx LIMS became known as ELab shortly before LabLynx fully separated from Atlanta Systems Consultants, Inc. in 2001.^[11]

Over 30 different modules and functions are associated with ELab, and licenses for the software are available with both onsite of offsite hosting services. LabLynx also states that ELab currently serves in many validated environments, including 21 CFR Part 11, CAP, and ISO/IEC 17025, in compliance with such standards as HIPAA, HL7, STORENET, FDA- and EPA-regulated good laboratory practice (GLP), and more.^[29]

webLIMS

webLIMS is a hosted LIMS software package based on the "software as a service" (SaaS) model of distribution.^[30] LabLynx introduced the offering in March 2009, touting 35 different laboratory informatics and business applications in the hosted package.^[15] As with most SaaS software, LabLynx intends to reduce cost to laboratories, decrease the amount of downtime, and provide a more scalable LIMS solution with its webLIMS service.^[17][30]

In 2009, LabLynx claimed the facility used for hosting the webLIMS application is an "SAS70 Type II audited, ultra-safe and fully redundant data center."^[15] To prevent downtime due to power outages, LabLynx states that its data center has:

• parallel independent supply lines and facility circuits
• instant battery backup and transition to multiple parallel diesel turbine generators
• hardware powered by two separate feeds and a Tripp Lite instant power distribution switch to the alternative feed^[31]

LiMStudio

LiMStudio is a virtual desktop add-on to LabLynx’s webLIMS hosted application. It consists of a collection of 10 development tools that allow webLIMS users to modify the applications in their account to their own needs. It also allows users the ability to create their own applications to connect to the LIMS, providing a more scalable and customizable LIMS option to clients.^[32]

HealthCloudPOL

HealthCloudPOL is a cloud-based laboratory information system (LIS) for the physician office laboratory (POL), introduced by the company in early 2015. The basic entry-level package is available for free to users.^[22][33] The company claims the software provides features such as order management, user management, sample batching, test parameter management, reporting, patient management, control charting, audit trails, and inventory management, among other functionality.^[34]

LabLynx claims the facility it uses for hosting the HealthCloudPOL application is a "state-of-the-art fully SSAE-16 SOC-2, TIA-942 compliant Cloud-Hosting Primary Data Center, with ongoing backups and redundancy both onsite and at a second, geographically remote, site."^[35]

References

External links

• Official website
• LIMSuniversity site
• LIMSfinder site
• LIMSwiki site