GREENVILLE, SC July 15, 2020 – As a growing amount of COVID-19 antibody tests are being administered, antibody testing efficiency is increasingly critical. Premier Medical Laboratory Services (PMLS), a leading commercial diagnostic laboratory, has found a way to increase their antibody testing capacity to now process 50,000 per day while decreasing their turnaround time – providing results in under 48 hours. PMLS has reached this level of efficiency by implementing a cloud-based laboratory information management system (LIMS), OnGen. OnGen LIMS interfaces directly with laboratory equipment, automating data entry, quality control, scheduling, and billing, streamlining their workflow.
Because OnGen integrates seamlessly with any electronic medical record system (EMR) that hospitals and physicians’ offices currently use, testing orders can be entered and communicated directly to laboratory instruments with modules that provide real-time results. That’s why PMLS is able to deliver antibody test results with an expedited turnaround time to physicians for their patients. Laboratories across the nation can drastically expand their workflow and bring antibody testing as well as COVID-19 PCR testing to an exponentially higher amount of patients that need it by implementing OnGen’s advanced LIMS.
“OnGen is the technology solution that we found most effective in automating many of our lab processes that would otherwise be done manually,” Kevin Murdock, Founder of Premier Medical Laboratory said. “We encourage other laboratories to use OnGen LIMS so that we can all better serve physicians who are providing vital COVID-19 antibody and PCR testing in battle against this pandemic.”
PMLS’s antibody test, or Immunoglobulin G/Immunoglobulin M enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (IgG/IgM ELISA), was granted Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) one month ago. It requires a blood draw administered by a physician or staff which is then sent to PMLS for the IgG/IgM ELISA. Results are provided within 24 – 48 hours upon lab receipt of the testing sample and determine if there is a presence of antibodies in the patient sample – indicating that the patient had a past infection of the COVID-19 virus and could potentially be immune to a reinfection. PMLS plans to increase their antibody testing capacity with OnGen to 100,000 serologic tests per day in the next two weeks.
Information about OnGen LIMS:
- fully HIPAA compliant
- Can seamlessly work with any Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system
- Has a physician outreach portal to ensure doctors can freely access information for their patients
- Allows administrators to set multiple levels of access so unauthorized access of patient information is blocked
- Includes modules that automate quality control, scheduling, testing and billing
Hospitals and physicians offices can provide COVID-19 antibody testing or PCR testing by clicking on the following link for easy account activation with Premier Medical Laboratory Services: www.firstmedlabs.com/covid-19