How do I specify requirements?
With a clear picture of your ideal workflow patterns, you are prepared to specify requirements for your LIS. Avoid shortcuts in this process, or you'll risk not getting all the utility an LIS can provide. If you limit its role to that of an electronic log book with interfaced instruments, you may remain trapped in current workflow patterns
Require a strong basic feature set
Make sure that the systems you review have the necessary basic features. At a minimum, these features should include full bar coding capability, full host query interfaces, and the ability to communicate with outside information systems. Insist on having these in any system you review. Chances are, capabilities you might not need right now will be needed sometime during the life of your system.
Require dynamic software
Think about what you might have needed from a lab information system if you had purchased one 4-5 years ago. Were your needs different then? Chances are that no matter how well you predict your changing environment over the next 4-5 years, new requirements will catch you by surprise. Make sure your LIS vendor has a demonstrated commitment to provide utility upgrades so you can keep pace with changing needs. This means software written in an object oriented programming environment -- a building-block approach that allows for the ultimate in flexibility. Only dynamic software can realistically keep up with the substantial changes that confront labs.
Specify the right operating system and hardware
Hardware and operating system choices for an LIS must be consistent with your organization's long term information systems plans. If there are other mission critical applications in your organization already, it's not enough to target your LIS for the same hardware platform and operating systems. Ask application vendors if future development will be on the same platforms. Often, users are surprised to find that a billing, ADT, or medical records vendor has shifted development resources from older text based systems (such as UNIX, AS400, or VAX) to systems with graphical user interfaces such as Windows XP/2003.
Microsoft Windows offers the best of both worlds: a graphical user interface (friendly icons instead of C:> or blinking cursors), 32 bit processing (really fast), scalability (it's practical for systems from 1 to 100+ workstations), flexibility (through object oriented programming), stability (rock solid), superior security (always a concern with confidential data), and outstanding value (relatively inexpensive). If your LIS is the first major application in your organization, the choice of platform is even easier -- go with Windows.
Require a fully integrated system
An information system that cannot communicate openly with other related applications has severely limited utility. Make certain that any LIS that you consider works with both industry-standard and custom interfaces to billing, reference lab, and medical record applications.