Digital Innovation
At IQVIA Laboratories, we have a dedicated Digital Innovation department focused on driving operational improvements and quality of our services. Using the Labmatrix® platform, a BioFortis (an IQVIA Company) technology, we’ve helped create agile and impactful solutions across the organization with the underpinnings of traceability, productivity, quality, and efficiency.
At a tactical level, reinforcing internal efficiency gains and connecting innovation across multiple functions has been the focus of the Innovation Hub. At the enterprise level, our focus is on big innovation ideas that will transform the way we access data and do business today.
Throughout the process, we have continued to work with sponsors and our business teams to think differently, challenge prior assumptions, and reimagine current processes and systems. The result has led to more robust and efficient processes which have been welcomed by both internal teams and by external clients and auditors.
Since the processes within the lab are manual and involve a lot of paper printing and hand-offs, we encourage the business teams to think of current wastage of resources and environmental benefits of doing these projects i.e. reduction in paper, printing, transportation, and archival costs.
Examples of Projects:
Anatomical Pathology (AP ePROC and ePRF)
The current Anatomical Pathology services embody 130 tests, across 5 clinical labs, with over 100 global employees involved in the process.
When biological samples arrive at a laboratory for AP services, they need to be properly identified, registered, prepared per the sample types and study-specific instructions, forwarded to pathologists for manual evaluation, stored or returned to other locations, and/or other ad hoc specialty actions.
As a result, this created a high volume, cumbersome paper and audit trail and was associated with a variety of manual risks that could not be mitigated satisfactorily through conventional procedural controls.
Anatomical Pathology ePROC and ePRF within Labmatrix has revolutionized the way our Anatomic Pathology team functions. No off-the-shelf product can provide such a completely digitized solution, with total flexibility and fully integrated workflows to capture vast amount of information on sample handling and processing, with the additional benefit of going completely paperless with pathologist reviews.
Benefits include the following:
- A paperless workflow to manage studies in a 21 CFR Part 11-compliant system
- Direct electronic data capture with built-in validation checks to eliminate the most common data mistakes, avoiding manual data entry both onto and from paper reports, and simplifying the quality control (QC) process
- More efficient and transparent processes, allowing for real-time data entry and workflow management, as well as streamlined study monitoring
This automation has eliminated manual data entry effort, reduced colored paper printing, paper archival resources and storage cost of physical data. Through the automation we have not only enhanced productivity in the team, the paperless process has helped save 22 trees equivalent of paper annually.
Flow Cytometry
Flow cytometry represents one of the fastest growing disciplines at IQVIA Laboratories, with 171 active assays, across 7 clinical labs and over 130 global employees involved in the process.
Flow cytometry data analysis required extensive use of more than 100 validated MS Excel spreadsheets to calculate thousands of individual results for each patient sample. Vast quantities of paper validation and patient data were being generated globally in a slow manual process.
Labmatrix was configured to complete these calculations faster, eliminate manual calculation errors, create an electronic audit trail throughout the data review process, provide a real time QC monitoring solution and replace all paper-based manual steps with electronic records.
This automation project coincided with our global implementation of the next generation flow cytometry Cytek™ Aurora platform, which generates considerably more data than traditional flow cytometers. Apart from faster TAT, increased productivity with high quality, the process automation has helped save paper equivalent to 44 trees annually.
IQVIA Laboratories data assets include historical trial execution information going back 20+ years. Timely insights and smart data analytics can help us drive internal efficiencies as well as support clients with smarter and better clinical trials. Digital Innovation is incubating the idea of deep differentiated data analytics and insights to support our clients in their drug development and patient journey.