collection

Maximizing Efficiency in Sample Archiving

Sample Archive Management is an important step in laboratory processes that involves carefully storing, organizing, retrieving and disposing of samples. It is often overlooked when working to improve lab efficiency and tends to be addressed by deploying heavy automation that is expensive and with a high total cost of ownership.

The main challenges that laboratory technicians face are:

  • Identify out-of-date samples, because of the lack of visibility of samples with different expiration dates, which frequently leads to over-archiving and, consequently also leads to or aggravates the shortage of storage space
  • Difficulty in locating samples, with painstaking and time-consuming searches through the sample storage
  • Difficulty identifying duplicate samples
  • Shortage of storage space
  • Manual recording of the disposal of samples in the laboratory information systems

iRacks with samples out of date

indexor automatically identifies for the user which samples are no longer viable for testing. Given a user-defined set time for sample validity, indexor not only lists which samples are past the threshold but also which racks – and to what percentage of each – have and the percentage of the rack affected, opening a list of all those expired samples, ensuring efficient archive management and preventing the accumulation of old, unnecessary samples, freeing up valuable storage space.

Search

When searching for one or more sample identifications, indexor instantly returns the known location of the sample. If the sample is in an iRack at the indexor, an LED light will blink close to the searched sample. If the sample is stored in a rack that is not in indexor, it will return the rack name and the position of the sample in the rack, for easier finding.

Storage types

Creates different archive periods – either shorter or longer – apart from the general threshold.

Same id samples

Indicator of duplicated samples, allowing for instant identification and location of pairs of primary and secondary samples.

LIS disposal and elimination record

Procedure to register the physical elimination of multiple samples at once at the LIS through indexor. Select the iRack as samples being eliminated, then empty the iRack content to a bin, placing the iRack back again in indexor. In the process, indexor automatically messages the LIS the list of samples being disposed of.