Electronic Lab Notebooks

Innovation at West is at the cornerstone of enabling both top-line growth and bottom-line results, and IT plays an important supporting role.  West views social media, mobility, analytics and cloud computing as game-changers, as well as the biggest opportunity for IT to move quickly to innovate with the business.  The consumerization of IT has driven down the cost of deploying technologies, and cloud computing has offered the ability to acquire IT as a service. So when it comes to plug and play, IT can move quickly with the business to innovate.

One of West’s most recent IT innovation examples is the introduction of electronic lab notebooks.  Electronic lab notebooks are at the foundation of West’s integrated electronic laboratory.  They can be used daily for all laboratory functions, from data acquisition through to sample and test management.   The benefits that West and its customers will receive from this investment range from reductions in transcription and calculation errors to increased productivity and the elimination of missed work steps and deviations.  All of this leads to improved quality for our customers and, ultimately, patients.

West IT continues to look for ways we can move quickly with our business partners to innovate and to solve business problems.  We recognize the need to take advantage of emerging technologies to dramatically improve our business processes and lower our costs to serve our customers.  Next month, we will provide insights into how West IT is taking on cloud computing to be able to weather any storm.