Do’s and Don’ts for Strategic Planning of Laboratory Informatics

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Kevin Gillespie

With more and more companies going paperless- many of whom are now moving toward LIMS and ELN selection and implementation-your industry may be facing subsequent issues of interoperability between systems, which systems work best, knowledgeable staff, regulatory oversight, cost and more. In this interview, Kevin Gillespie, Manager, Laboratory Information Systems, Momenta Pharmaceuticals, shares his do's and don'ts for strategic planning of laboratory informatics.

Pharma IQ: Please could you tell us a bit your current role?

K Gillespie: As Manager of Laboratory Information Systems, I am responsible for all lab informatics spanning from early discovery all the way through QC.

Pharma IQ: How do you think the laboratory informatics landscape has changed in recent years?

K Gillespie: I’ve seen a good bit of convergence in various areas. For example, there seems to be a lot of LIMS systems moving toward ELN and SDMS functionality and vice versa.

Pharma IQ: What are your do’s and don’ts for strategic planning of laboratory informatics?

Do talk to as many people as you possibly can. The more information you can gather, the clearer your picture will be.
Do map out what people do and how they do it. Verify everything looks right to the user community as you go.
Do approach the exercise with an open mind. Do not start things with an eye toward getting people to some something in particular.
Do get as much organizational buy-in as you can (these folks are the ones you’ll ideally be helping). It works best when the user community comes to you first looking for solutions. If they don’t see a problem in the first place, it’ll be a hard sell to have them adopt anything you suggest.

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Do not try to force any existing systems on people who may not benefit from them.
Do not even think about solutions to problems until you’ve identified what those problems may be. Once you do identify solutions, try to keep an eye toward integration of different systems. The more a person can live in their main application without having to go out to different applications for data, there better their life will be.

Pharma IQ: How do you think cloud computing will impact laboratory informatics?

K Gillespie: The most significant benefit I’ve seen with cloud computing is the ability to quickly and cheaply spin up resources to address a particular need, typically short-term.

Pharma IQ: What are you most looking forward to about the 10th Forum on Laboratory Informatics?

K Gillespie: I’m always looking to see what other people are doing to address those problems that we all have. You never know where an interesting idea may come from.