Role of Laboratory Information System (LIS) in enhancing quality in hospital laboratory services

Treatment of each and every patient depends, to a great extent, on the laboratory reports generated. Diagnostic laboratories have an important role to play in ensuring quality and patient safety. The study was conducted in Biochemistry Laboratory of a tertiary care hospital. The study of work flow and data collection was done before and after the implementation of the Laboratory Information System (LIS). The introduction of LIS resulted in 23.7% improvement in adherence to Turn-Around Time (TAT), 86 % reduction in labeling errors, 90.2 % reduction in Missed Orders and 50 % reduction in Transcription errors. Totally the number of errors significantly reduced from 1 in 90 to 1 in 588 tests (11.1 in 1000 to 1.7 in 1000 tests) after the implementation of LIS. Conclusion: LIS contributes to improvement in the efficiency of the laboratory, reduction in laboratory errors, improvement in quality of patient care and consequently in Patient Safety.