One of our past blogs about busting LIMS myths was met with great enthusiasm. Several of the comments on that blog pointed out other LIMS myths and misconceptions, which still persist today and remain deserving of public busting.

I Don’t Have Time to Do a Formal LIMS Selection

Why is this still a thing? We hear this so often, right before the potential client asks one of our consultants to “just tell me which LIMS is the best”. Unfortunately, the answer is completely subjective. There is no single best LIMS. The right choice depends entirely on your lab’s workflows, samples, and requirements. The only way to select the best LIMS for your organization is to go through a well-established and documented LIMS selection process, which will take time and effort. The needs assessment, workflow analyses, and optimization processes are a worthwhile investment that will pay dividends as you proceed with your LIMS implementation.

Many of the steps taken during a LIMS selection can be leveraged down the road during the implementation of your chosen LIMS solution. For example, workflow analyses and optimization efforts are a great way to document an organization’s informatics needs and requirements. This work should be part of any comprehensive LIMS implementation, which ensures that you are automating the most efficient processes. So although the time and effort you expend on workflow optimization during the selection process is not trivial, you will save time and effort later, during implementation. Investing in a strategic selection process with comprehensive requirements gathering and needs assessment can, perhaps counterintuitively, save you money in the long run by keeping your eventual implementation on track.

We also hear “I didn’t have time to do a formal LIMS selection ”after the fact, from panicked LIMS project leaders who are lamenting the fact that although they thought they were saving a bunch of time, effort, and expense, they now have a LIMS that isn’t right for them. Sadly, these LIMS project leaders are now facing a huge time, resource, and financial mess.

Implementing a LIMS Will Make Us Regulatory Compliant

This is a classic LIMS myth that would be great if it were true, but unfortunately it is not. Whether the origin of this myth is wishful thinking or overzealous LIMS marketers, the fact is that although a LIMS can HELP you be regulatory compliant, just installing one will not automatically bestow compliance. The devil is in the details. How you choose to implement your LIMS, what features and functions you elect to use, and in what manner will all impact how your LIMS will function to support your lab’s journey to regulatory compliance. But even if you take advantage of every regulatory feature of a LIMS, there will still be aspects of your compliance that cannot be addressed within a LIMS. This is quite normal and we are often called upon to help clients use standard operating procedures (SOPs) and other documentation techniques to attain and maintain regulatory compliance.

Another aspect of regulatory compliance in certain industries is the requirement to validate your scientific software (e.g., LIMS).Computer System Validation (CSV) is a very well documented process with clear deliverables that require effort, time, and resources. A full IQ,OQ, and PQ validation with documentation is needed to withstand an audit. ALIMS is not pre validated, and it’s a best practice to have at least part of the validation done by a third party, not the vendor.

Interfacing Instruments to My LIMS Is Not a Must Have—They Can Wait

When developing and documenting your LIMS user requirements, it is typical to prioritize them to determine what is most important to you and what should be implemented in phase one of your LIMS implementation project. One of the classic ways of doing this is by using the MoSCoW method, which stands for Must Have, Should Have, Could Have (a.k.a., Nice to Have), and Won't Have. Interfacing lab instruments to your LIMS yields many benefits including:

• higher quality results
• data integrity support
• efficiency gains
• a larger pool of data to leverage with AI
• high user satisfaction and adoption rates

However, most lab organizations don’t designate instrument integrations as Must Haves, worthy of inclusion in the first phase of implementation. Rather, they are relegated to the Nice to Have category and put off to Phase 2 or beyond of the LIMS implementation project.

Ironically, the efficiency gains and associated cost savings derived from interfacing instruments to LIMS are often used as major points in justifying your LIMS, even though those interfaces may never happen. You see, getting to Phase 2 of your LIMS project where implementing the instrument interfaces is planned can be a real challenge. In fact, Phase2 often never materializes.

LIMS Is Dead—ELNs Are What You Really Need

The origin of this myth was in the excitement and thrill when Electronic Lab Notebooks (ELNs) first became viable in the commercial lab informatics market. A new, shiny technology (ELN) naturally would be heralded as bringing the demise of an older, more established technology (LIMS). There were many software providers that had a vested interest in seeing ELNs supplant LIMS. But the saying, “The rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated ”would apply here.

LIMS and ELNs (as well as scientific data platforms) are viable lab informatics solutions that can be used in many types of labs and industries. In fact, LIMS and ELNs have, over time, become truly complementary solutions and are often implemented simultaneously and in an integrated fashion. Today, these solutions are often integrated into a connected scientific data platform.

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Have you heard these, or other, LIMS myths before?