by Henry Marché, Senior Business Analyst, Forensics, and Dr. Robin MacDonald, Senior Product Manager, Forensics, LabVantage
Forensic labs today face numerous escalating pressures, ranging from tight budgets and stretched resources to extended backlogs of case files. In 2020, the last year reported, publicly funded crime labs alone had a backlog of nearly 711,000 requests that had not been completed within 30 days of submission. To address these serious challenges, many future-ready labs are examining their internal systems, recognizing the limitations of paper-based systems, and investing in modern technologies, such as Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS), to reduce administrative burdens and increase efficiency while maintaining adherence to strict quality standards.
The pressures aren’t going away
The hurdles forensic labs face today are varied and becoming more complex and challenging as technology advances and expectations escalate. Here are just a few of the challenges:
Stretched resources. Forensic labs often must contend with limited budgets, caps on head count, and extensive backlogs. Doing more with less is a common requirement. That means boosting efficiency, enhancing automation, and trimming waste wherever possible.
Workforce expectations. The workforce, from examiners and analysts to departmental managers, expects tools to help them do their jobs, collaborate with colleagues, and securely access relevant data from any location. Generations who have grown up with smartphones in their hands expect that level of intuitive and user-friendly technology in their workforce experience. A modern LIMS platform provides that, pushing insights and recommendations to the user at key decision points and supporting self-serve training and queries to find relevant answers.
Error prone and tedious. Manual systems are error prone. Even hybrid systems, such as manually entering data into a spreadsheet, are tedious, inefficient, and vulnerable to human errors, like transposing numbers or illegible handwriting. An integrated LIMS that imports data from instruments prevents many of those data-entry risks and saves valuable time.
High stakes. The forensic lab deals with cases involving individuals accused of serious crimes, from homicide to drug cases that span multiple years of evidence gathering. Labs strive to keep preventable operational oversights from impacting justice. This is why it is important to have systems in place that ensure quality control and reliability. Modern technology has become a requirement for the lab that needs to boost performance—without risking outcomes.
Reputation. A serious error can put reliability into question. Analysts may have to spend additional hours in court defending findings that are called into question because of a poor reputation or a lab error. In the most damaging of all situations, a conviction may be overturned, causing a cascade of rulings to be reopened and questioned. A LIMS can prevent human data entry and transcription errors, preserve data integrity, and enforce protocols.
LIMS: Role-specific benefits for the entire organization
With a LIMS platform – one that includes an electronic lab notebook (ELN) for capturing analyst notes; a lab execution system (LES) to enforce compliance; a scientific data management system (SDMS) to improve data accuracy; and access to artificial intelligence – multiple stakeholders in the forensic life cycle benefit. A modern LIMS provides an end-to-end platform for easily storing files, tracking evidence and chain of custody, sharing data, recording notes, integrating with equipment, capturing and storing findings, and generating reports. Here are just a few of the benefits as they apply to specific roles.
Analyst/Examiner
A LIMS helps the analyst/examiner analyze evidence from crime scenes, perform tests, and provide expert testimony in court. With integrated ELN, LES, and SDMS in the LIMS, analysts find many timesaving features, increasing productivity as steps are automated, complex tasks are streamlined, and redundancies eliminated. Best practices are also set in motion for every test and every report, improving accuracy, compliance, and trust. By eliminating some tedious steps, forensic scientists can get more done, reducing stress and encouraging a positive workplace experience.
Administration and Management
Customer service to law enforcement agencies becomes much easier and efficient with a LIMS platform. Digital files are easy to find, eliminating the arduous task of tracking down paper folders, determining which team has the case file in question, and juggling multiple phone calls to track down data or reasons for delay. Instead, with a LIMS, all of the information is in one secure place, searchable, and accessible to relevant team members. The course the digital case file takes through the system is visible, so administrators can see progress and understand roadblocks to be addressed, especially if a trial date is approaching.
Quality Control
Quality control procedures are embedded throughout the LIMS functionality, helping labs to adhere to industry standards—and apply their own workflow safeguards such as department or manager sign-off and approvals. Other safeguards ensure data is entered correctly (i.e., the right value), meets laboratory testing capabilities (e.g., above LOD or within the uncertainty of measurement), and discrepancies (e.g., values beyond the typical range) are flagged immediately for review. A LIMS also relates results with examiners and their training, the equipment used and its maintenance record, etc. to collect information throughout the evidence life cycle. Because a LIMS platform digitizes these documents, automates processes, monitors equipment/instrument calibrations and reagent expiries, the lab can easily audit workflows and identify gaps in training, overextended resources, or equipment degradation.
Because the LIMS is the primary data repository, laboratory records and statistics can be extracted from the LIMS database more efficiently and effectively, rather than requiring users to hunt for information in paper-based case files, lab notebooks, and instrument logs. With the information digitized, the LIMS facilitates record retrieval to respond to discovery requests and auditors, and its data can be used to monitor trends within the laboratory. This digitization helps the quality manager as they can use embedded corrective action/preventive action (CAPA) functionality in the LIMS to manage internal investigations, attain quality assurance and ISO 17025 accreditation, and easily search and retrieve data to determine the root cause and identify impacted cases.
Lab Manager/Director
The LIMS provides valuable data to the department managers, lab supervisors, and budget-controlling leadership. The LIMS gives stakeholders visibility into workflows, backlogs, results, and KPIs, as well as drops in productivity or red flags around workforce issues. Whether the lab is private or public, there are stakeholders who want to see data to verify that resources are being used wisely.
The LIMS provides that data, generating the insights needed to make strategic decisions such as hiring, investing in new lab equipment, or outsourcing work to contract organizations. Whether it is Grant Management tracking that associates’ grants with equipment and consumables purchased or relating purchases to a yearly budget or to specific casework, these relationships can help an organization justify how grant funding has been spent and the impact it has had. The data insights can also help justify additional grant funding or prepare a future budget request. And for government agencies, additional reporting mandates may apply, such as the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments and GPRA Modernization Act, adding more reasons why a LIMS is a valuable tool for the organization.
Concluding thoughts
Multiple stakeholders across the forensic life cycle gain from a modern LIMS solution. An integrated LIMS platform boosts productivity of forensic examiners, analysts, specialists, lab managers and directors, and quality personnel, whether they are on the bench conducting tests, ensuring the accuracy of findings, or analyzing the team’s strengths and opportunities to improve.
As forensic labs today face numerous hurdles, such as increasingly complex and voluminous testing and strained budgets, a modern LIMS platform built specifically for the forensic life cycle helps the lab meet or exceed expectations of stakeholders. Lab results are shared with others in forensic investigations and criminal justice proceedings in a timely and efficient manner, while ensuring and preserving lab reliability and credibility. Any lab that is struggling with outdated, manual systems should begin a digital makeover and adopt a modern LIMS platform to improve quality and the lab’s administrative and scientific efficiency.