In pharmaceutical labs, frequent interaction happens between the technician, the sample, and the surroundings. In the process, there is always a chance of the introduction of contaminants into the microbial lab environment. Microbes can alter the chemistry and composition of drugs which can break down the active ingredients and impact the product’s efficacy. Drugs contaminated by microbes can cause long-term harm to patients. For this, controlled environmental monitoring in laboratories is a needed solution. Environmental and Microbial monitoring is a demanding challenge that a LIMS alone cannot solve. It needs a partner to tackle the demands of tracking, trending, and controlling contamination. This partner is a robust digital environmental and microbial monitoring system.
LIMS is ALL-INCLUSIVE, EM Needs to be EXCLUSIVE
Most laboratories have been using Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) to manage their activities and information. LIMS helps in managing critical laboratory aspects such as instrument integration, sample management, electronic notebooks, inventory management, and many more.
While some LIMS applications also offer Environmental Monitoring as one of the modules, legacy LIMS systems do not offer a full-fledged solution for this specific need.
The role of stand-alone EM software is to help labs achieve strict control over contamination with area mapping, contamination tracking, and robust data trending. In addition to its exclusive focus on controlling microbial contamination, EM software must also allow users to record the results and generate trends by achieving automation with 21 CFR part 11 compliance.
Reinforcing LIMS with a Dedicated EM Software
Most LIMS applications include scheduling modules and environment management, and sampling modules that can be used together to support environmental monitoring. As the software is designed for the general lab processes, it becomes challenging to deep dive into the clean room environmental monitoring or other remote location sampling protocols. LIMS can sometimes achieve this, but only with certain workarounds and configurations.
Sampling location restrictions and scheduling limitations may require a mobile-friendly version of LIMS for sample logging in a clean room, accompanied by a sterile label printer. Moreover, the sampling needs to be assigned to various technicians or microbiologists considering the use of specialized PPE and the prevalence of limited access labs. This is a limitation with most LIMS applications.
Associating the physical location of samples due to capturing issues in a typical LIMS workflow requires a Storage Location Management module.
A Stand-alone, Standout Software for Environmental Monitoring
CaliberEMpro is the latest release from Caliber, which stands as a strong companion to the flagship CaliberLIMS. CaliberEMpro – a new-age EM system with all the latest features and technology. With this latest innovation, Caliber enables concentrated focus on media, water, sample, air, personnel, label, and culture management to maintain sterile lab environments. Moreover, it can generate a complete lab analysis report from incubation to results recording and microbial identification. The capability of generating reports and trends makes it more indispensable. CaliberEMpro offers features like area mapping, area visualization, microbial identification and tracking, and focused reporting on areas and their trends, that a LIMS alone cannot do.
Innovative Products are Better Than Standard Configurations
In today’s era of innovations and exploration, it is unnecessary to devise workarounds and manipulate workflows. If a need must be specifically addressed, which is as critical as sterile and controlled monitoring for laboratory spaces, a thorough innovation is essential.
Labs of the future are growing to be more complex. Thus, having a separate EM software that pins environmental monitoring precisely is an intelligent step forward.
Explore CaliberEMpro to unleash the hidden potential of EM software for your labs.
