Bika Health pilot in Suriname

A project to pilot Bika Health 0.2 interfaced to OpenERP and EMR Medical on a project at the University Hospital in Paramaribo, Suriname has been started

From a post by Chris Larsen at the Bika OS Health LIMS discussion group

Due to a series of fortunate circumstances, we have been able to close ranks with the Bika group, as well as the OpenERP/Medical developers in order to launch both applications in the course of a pilot project with the Academisch Ziekenhuis (University Hospital) in Paramaribo, Suriname
As the above programs are Python-based, we even hope to make them talk to each other, which would provide an important step towards a reasonably holistic framework for health facilities
This holds even more true, as the OpenERP backbone of Medical offers great potential to facilitate everyday health facility management

A test platform is nearing completion. Interfacing the laboratory instruments will be the only major customisation to Bika Health required for the pilot. Functional and design discussion continues at the Health group
The interface to OpenMRS completed earlier will be complemented with interfaces to Medical and OpenERP, open source medical and enterprise record keeping and management systems respectively
The Bika developer team thanks all the participants, Health group members, Medical, the Academisch Ziekenhuis and Chris for glueing the project together, it is difficult to contain our excitement
Project Concept Paper: Piloting Bika, OpenERP and Medical with the Academisch Ziekenhuis in Paramaribo (Suriname)

 

(as posted on Bika Lab Systems)

Bika LIMS 2.2.1 Released

Although the full announcement with Press Release, updated demo, updated project pages on www.bikalabs.com are still wip, here already a quick mention that the files are already available for download from SF.net:

• Bika Package; download this if you want to upgrade you LIMS and already have all dependent products.
• Bika Product Bundle; download this if you don't have the dependent products, all are included in the bundle.
• Browse all available files and archive types
  

Here the installation instructions. User Manual is also wip, but most of it is already covered in the Bika LIMS 2 manual.If you want to set-up the Bika Calendar, this manual might also come in handy.
For any discussions about the system;Bika User list (archive) for all installation issues, as well as the Developer's List (archive) and the Bika OS LIMS Analysis & Design List (archive)

So What's New?

Bika LIMS 2.2.0 Changes:

• Attachments permitted on analysis requests and analyses
• Worksheet resequencing, and sort order for worksheet analysis selection
• Worksheet deletion only available for open worksheets
• Portlet to provide export of analysis services and analysis profiles
• Requirement for unique analysis service names, analysis service keywords, instrument import keywords and analysis profile keywords enforced.
• Report headings and formats standardized across different reports
• Analysis Request import alternative layout provided with selection, including profiles
• Progress bar introduced for long running processes
• Updated interface with Softline Pastel (South African Accounting package)

Bika LIMS 2.2.1 Changes (minor update):

• StandardSampleUID was omitted from the StandardAnalysis object
  

The Truth Behind the Hype Behind Softare-as-a-Service (SaaS) LIMS - Part One

I was planning to only post monthly updates of interesting articles we come across and publish within our reads folder, but after reading this article from LIMSletter, I just couldn't wait.

The whole article is a worthwhile read, but the highlights for me are the following snippets :

“According to industry research, 31.1% of software projects are cancelled before they are completed. Of those software projects which have been completed, over half (52.7%) have taken twice as long or have cost twice as much as originally expected. When on-premise software applications are fully deployed, the maintenance and management costs can be ten times the original license fee.”(1) Indeed, the failure rate of commercial LIMS solutions is commonly estimated to be as high as 60% by industry analysts such as Strategic Directions and ArcWeb."

“More than 80% of scientific labs do not use a professional LIMS. Not because they don’t want to, but because implementing a LIMS has been too difficult, time consuming, and costly. That ‘perfect storm’ of daunting factors includes commercial-off-the-shelf LIMS as well as home-grown solutions.” Instead, according to Kent, most labs still rely on informal systems, such as paper-based notebooks, Excel spreadsheets, or tracking systems cobbled together using tools such as Microsoft Access or FileMaker Pro"

"One LIMS vendor has stated that “the main difference between a subscription-hosted LIMS and a direct purchase ‘on-site LIMS’ is the initial cost and total cost of ownership (TCO)”.This is not the full story. The most critical difference lies not in how it is priced, but in the underlying code and how the SaaS LIMS was developed."

"In order for a SaaS LIMS to succeed, not only must the SaaS vendor invest in a comprehensive SDP, but they must also ensure the implementation of security technologies and certification programs that govern data center operations and personnel. These certification programs can include SAS 70, ISO standards, HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley, etc. The Statement on Auditing Standards (SAS) No. 70, for instance, is the authoritative auditing standard that judges a service organization’s controls and safeguards over their information technology and related processes. It is important that the SaaS LIMS vendor be able to produce SAS 70 service auditor reports which validate that the service offering conforms to the guidance requirements and thus delivers a secure service."

"Fortunately, if the service does not meet the lab’s needs, it can be cancelled. The burden of success rests not with the customer but with the SaaS vendor to deliver reliable, scalable, secure services. This enables the laboratory to focus on the attributes of the SaaS solution and determine how well those features and functions meet the lab’s needs, and not on implementation, management and support."

This resonated strongly with us at Bika Lab Systems, as we have been offering SaaS since inception, as our LIMS has always been web-based rather than web-enabled. And we offer it for all our products; Bika LIMS, Bika Interlab, Bika Wine, Bika CMS and soon Bika Water.

This article has also been published in our Reads folder, which is RSS enabled.
More about Bika Lab Systems' SaaS offerings.

Open Source & Open Source LIMS related articles

Open Source, it's companies and their place in the larger software ecosystem has recently gotten attention again through a couple of interesting write ups.

At Bika Lab Systems, when we come across interesting articles we post them in our Reads folder, for which we now have also enabled an RSS feed, so you can easily stay up to date with latest postings. The articles we added in August where;

• SaaS Myths Debunked – Laboratories and Scientific industries reap the benefits of SaaS
• What to look for in an Open Source Company

But I also wanted to mention the article 'Open Source.... not a Hippi, Commie Movement' by John H. Jones, of LabLynx, where apart from linking to our website, he also says that Bika Lab Systems is one of the 'very successful companies that are based upon the Commercial Open Source business model and they provide software that your lab needs' but also 'Right now we only have 2 real commercial open source LIMS vendors and I hope more will follow.'

I don't mind such a plug at all!-)

Professional Open Source at Work

To see a good example of how the Professional Open Source business model works, you should have a look at our User List, Bika-Users (register - view archives).

Take the post with subject 'File Attachments', which was initiated by Dr. Michael Kirchner (Institute of Inorganic Chemistry from the University of Duisberg-Essen, Germany) on May the 11th, with the question:

"The most important feature is to be able to attach files (raw data, crystal information files, images) as the results of a measurement. Is this possible with bika?"

This was recognised by Bika LIMS user Chris Bolton (CEO of Benchmark Laboratories Group, Canada), who replied:

"...in our case a number of our clients are now requesting that we
attach copies of our chromatograph reports (images of chemical
signatures) produced from our gas chromatographs (GC's)"

The discussion kicked off which led to a distilled specification over three months of various inputs. The final spec, which was project managed by Lemoene Smit, was as follows:

Set-up
---------

To maintain flexibility and redundancy, attachments are allowed on both
AR and Analysis level and this is configured in the LIMS setup:

Global flag in 'Laboratory information' to indicate attachments per
AR yes/no

A similar flag per 'Analysis Service' to indicate attachments per
Analysis yes/no

In both cases:

Compulsory Y?N


Set-up table of Attachment types

Title

Description


Set-up per Client Contact
-----------------------------------

For the user to decide whether to include attachments with emailed
results or links only (default)

Radio button on the contact's publication preferences


At run time, on each AR or Analysis as configured earlier, Upload
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Manage results tab

Functionality to multi load attachments from the file system via
standard *nix/Mac/Windows file browsing

Add Keywords

For ARs only

Remarks field – drop down to select Attachment title and description

It'll be quite difficult to fit all of these in per analysis

NB. Workflow dependency: ARs/Analyses without compulsory attachments
cannot proceed to to_be_verified


View and download attachment
------------------------------------------

None of the attachments will be shown in views or results emails
directly, but hyper linked only to where they are kept inside the database

File sizes are displayed to warn users of the size of the download

Clicking the link will open the attachment using the user's standard
browser preferences

AR attachments only: For display / email / print functionality these
files listed at the top of the AR window


Printed reports
--------------------
Each attachment referenced by

Title

File name

URL

Upload date


Search and Queries
----------------------------

Users finds Attachments using

file name

title

file type

Chris then sponsored this development, which was managed by Anneline Sweetnam, development manager of Bika Lab Systems, on the main trunk of Bika LIMS.

This development has been finalised and is now available on a test instance to be evaluated and signed off. If you're interested send me an email, and I'll supply you with access details

This and several other developments will be released in a major upgrade of Bika LIMS 2.2 in the next quarter.

Did you miss the announcement of the small Bika LIMS 2.1.1 release and the upgrade demo?

Here is the news item that carried the announcement, and here the list of changes in 2.1.1.
You can request a demo by sending an email to demorequest@bikalabs.com and mention that you would like to try Bika LIMS.

Nominate Bika LIMS for the SF.net 2009 Community Awards

Bika LIMS @ Sourceforge.net is vying for the 2009 Community Choice Awards

Nominate Bika for:

• Bika open source LIS/LIMS for Best Project

• Bika open source LIS/LIMS for Best Project for Academia