The development and use of an Automated Laboratory Information Management System (ALIMS) to reduce processing time in a microbiology laboratory

Background: The objective was to describe the development and use of an Automated Laboratory Information Management System (ALIMS) designed to reduce time from sample collection to results reporting for a large HIV Prevention trial in Peru. Methods: Three HIV STD prevalence studies were performed in 3 Peruvian cities. In study 1, samples were received by the laboratory and manually entered into a database. For the other 2 studies, the ALIMS was implemented, using barcode labeling. Results: In study 1, 3,258 samples were collected with an average of 39.1 days (range 3.9 - 126.0) from collection to results reporting. After ALIMS implementation, average processing time was 23.1 days (range 22.7 - 36.5) for study 2 (2,746 samples) and 12.4 days (range 10.5 - 19.2) for study 3 (6,593 samples). Conclusions: The ALIMS substantially reduced the time from sample collection to results reporting. Automated systems such as ALIMS could help laboratory data management for large studies and provide rapid results.