Ovation LIMS Release Notes: Release 40
As we head into the end of the year, we’re excited for your lab to gain more operational efficiency with the latest Ovation LIMS updates. Read on to learn what we’ve launched and what’s coming soon!
In this article:
- Release 40 Highlight: Improved Provider Accounts Management
- Coming Soon
- In Case You Missed It: Product Update Roundup
👉 Before diving in, consider watching our webinar on demand where we reviewed Release 40 in detail!
Release 40 Highlight: Improved Provider Accounts Management
Your lab’s ability to quickly and efficiently manage your list of clients is crucial for any growing lab business. That’s why we’ve listened to your feedback and worked on improvements that will make it easier for your lab to manage Provider Accounts within Ovation LIMS.
Three-minute rundown capturing all the Provider Accounts management improvements
What Your Team Can Do With Improved Provider Accounts Management
- Manage Contacts independently of Provider Accounts. Contacts have been broken out as a separate list so they can be shared across Provider Accounts. This allows you to bulk import/export Contacts easily and manage Contacts without needing to first navigate to a Provider Account.
- Associate a Contact with multiple Provider Accounts. Then, when you update a Contact (such as a new phone number), that change will automatically apply to all Provider Accounts with which this Contact is associated. Similarly, deleting a Contact will remove them from all Provider Accounts with which they're associated.
- Automatically associate Contacts with Providers. If you've been managing Provider Accounts in Ovation LIMS, you know that a Contact must be associated with a Provider. However, a Contact within a Provider Account should almost always be associated with all the Providers within that Account. New settings will allow for that to happen automatically by default.
Note: This setting will be enabled by default for new Provider Accounts created after your lab implements these improvements. We recommend enabling it manually for your existing Provider Accounts.
- Export all Provider Account data together. Export all your client information into one Excel file that includes all Provider Accounts and their Providers and Contacts.
- More validation to help ensure accurate information is entered and duplicates are prevented. You’ll now see a warning if you try to create a new Provider Account with a name, account number, or phone number that matches an existing Provider Account under your organization. The system also prevents duplicate Contacts from being added to an organization by checking for a unique email address.
Note: While this change only applies to Contact records added after this functionality is enabled, the Ovation team can identify and perform a merge of any existing duplicate Contact records that are already in your Ovation LIMS instance. This allows you to have clean data across both existing and new Contacts. Learn more in our Improved Provider Accounts Management Contacts Merge Article >
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Add additional Provider Account addresses to a requisition. You can now change the settings of your Requisition Template so that an Accessioner can add a Provider Account address to the Requisition Form. They can do this manually or select from a new list of “Saved Addresses” within a Provider Account. These Saved Addresses are stored within the Provider Account in Ovation LIMS. They can be added by your lab directly within the LIMS or by provider staff within the Ovation Portal.
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More comprehensive audit logging. Easily track more actions, such as who associated a Provider with a Provider Account in your organization (through the Provider Account’s “Audit” tab ) and when a Contact was edited (through the new Contact “Audit” tab).
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New “Notes” field on the Contact details page allows your team to share and store relevant information about the Contact directly in their record.
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Enhanced search capabilities. It’s easier to find the client information you’re looking for within Provider Accounts, Providers, and Contacts lists.
How to Access Improved Provider Accounts Management
These improvements are now available and can be activated in your Ovation LIMS!
Submit a Project/Change Request Form and our team will work with you to get these improvements up and running in your Sandbox and Production environments.
For a deep dive into the details, head to the Improved Provider Accounts Management Early Access Overview.
Coming Soon
We’re working on rolling out these features and improvements in Q1 2023.
New Partnership with Dendi LIS to Support Clinical Chemistry and Toxicology Testing
Many labs come to us looking for a purpose-built solution because they understand molecular workflows require the comprehensive sample traceability that Ovation LIMS offers. We believe we’ll continue to earn the right to serve your lab by focusing our resources where Ovation excels—supporting the complexity of molecular workflows—while offering a simple, valuable solution for other testing disciplines.
That’s why Ovation LIMS will soon support clinical chemistry and toxicology workflows through a combined offering with Dendi LIS!
Ovation is working side-by-side with Dendi LIS to provide a unified, integrated solution between the two systems that allows your lab to gain best-of-breed functionality across testing disciplines while also experiencing streamlined support and contracting.
Sample Management Enhancements
It’s no secret that robust sample tracking and management is one of the most effective ways labs can reduce workflow inefficiencies and significantly lower labor costs. As a result, we’re investing in comprehensive sample management enhancements based on feedback we’ve collected from consulting our partner labs. Some of these updates are already available in Ovation LIMS, with more arriving in the coming months.
SAMPLE MANAGEMENT ENHANCEMENTS ALREADY AVAILABLE:
- New “Sample Types” page allows users with the “Sample Types” permission to centrally manage which sample types can be created in the lab’s Ovation LIMS. Learn more in the Sample Types Article >
- Sample Types are now always associated with a universal SNOMED CT name, ID, and class. This allows your lab to adopt industry-standard taxonomy recognizable in reporting to third parties and integrations with other systems. You can use a display name that works for your lab while capturing the SNOMED codes in the background. Your lab’s existing sample types have already been automatically associated with the appropriate SNOMED codes.
- Requisition Forms can now display only relevant Sample Types. Order entry is much more efficient as users completing requisitions will only view and be able to select from sample types that have been configured for that sample group. Submit a Project/Change Request Form to take advantage of this efficiency.
- Users can now sort and filter the Samples index page to more easily find samples they’re looking for, including new fields: “Test” and “Test Panel.” Soon, users will also be able to export their selected list of filtered samples to a CSV file. Please note: Patient Name, Tests, Test Panels, Workflows, and Workflow Status cannot be sorted at this time.
SIGNIFICANT SAMPLE MANAGEMENT UPDATES COMING IN EARLY 2023:
- New sample details pages allow you to easily view and edit critical details about specific samples, such as collection date, associated patient information, status, and containers—no need to navigate to a requisition to manage information about a particular specific sample.
- Ability to tag samples so they display—and can be categorized by—distinct characterizations your lab requires, such as “High Priority” or “Incident #.”
Work in progress - Design subject to change
In Case You Missed It: Product Update Roundup
Here’s a roundup of some of the most impactful updates that have gone live in Production since our last major release.
Monkeypox Virus Testing Support
Should your lab choose to provide monkeypox testing, Ovation is here to support you. Several labs have already implemented monkeypox virus testing workflows and patient reporting on Ovation LIMS, including Sinochips Diagnostics, one of the first.
"I was impressed with how quickly Ovation was able to configure our LIMS instance to facilitate our monkeypox virus testing and report results."
Ziyan Pessetto, Ph.D.
Chief Scientific Officer & Co-founder, Sinochips Diagnostics
If you’re ready to implement monkeypox virus testing in your Ovation LIMS, complete the Project/Change Request Form and we’ll get you started quickly.
Provider Accounts Management Updates
In preparation for the more significant Provider Account management improvements mentioned above, several small but important user experience enhancements were made, including:
- Users can now search the Provider Accounts index page more easily within each column
- Users no longer need to select a Sales Representative when adding or importing a new Provider Account
- Users can now more easily read the Provider Accounts audit log, which is also more robust to include changes to associations between Contacts and Providers
HL7 Integration Observability & Testing Improvements
One of the themes of our product roadmap is to make Ovation LIMS more self-serve for our users. While you’ll always have our team’s expert help, we’ve heard your feedback that the best user experience allows you to be as hands-on as possible.
Providing you with the ability to transparently observe file exchanges and perform the first line of troubleshooting for any message failures within an HL7 integration is our first step towards this goal. This includes:
- Users can now see a banner within an HL7 integration that indicates whether Ovation LIMS can connect with the configured SFTP host.
- Users can now test connecting to the SFTP host configured for importing and exporting HL7 messages.
- Users can now re-send a test result as an HL7 message to an SFTP host to correct a failure in the configuration or the receiving host.
- Users can now download a "compendium" of configuration-specific information to share with developers working on integrations. Learn More in the "Integrations Compendium" Article >
OTHER INTEGRATION IMPROVEMENTS INCLUDED:
- Users can now see events for the last 30 days rather than only the last seven days in the HL7 integration Event Log.
- We added an API endpoint that returns formal JSON schema for a template that describes the payloads of the APIs to create and update requisitions in that template. This schema can then be used to validate payloads by hand or with a JSON schema validator.
- We added a configuration option for the Arkstone integration to avoid generating an Arkstone OneChoice Report if no organisms are detected in the test results. Submit a Project/Change Request Form to configure this feature.
- We added a “Coriell Medications Only” option on the requisition template settings page that limits the medications available to be selected by users to only those compatible with the Coriell Life Sciences PGx integration.
- Several improvements to the Thermo Fisher Scientific Ion Reporter integration, including trimming the upload destination path of whitespace, new option to upload a sample list for Ion Reporter Sample Validation activity, and fixed multiple result records showing in Ion Reporter Sample Validation.
Ovation Research Network Biobanking Improvements
Recently, we made several improvements that help labs participating in the Ovation Research Network efficiently process and send remnant samples to Ovation’s biorepository. Here are just a few highlights:
- We made several enhancements to consent capture and management, including:
- Users can now capture medical consent explicitly on requisitions.
- Users can now record an individual patient’s request to opt out of Ovation Research Network entitlements on a requisition.
- Users can now configure default values for medical consent and patient consent notification on the requisition template. These default values can be customized for specific Provider Accounts.
- Users can now view additional information about the ability to biobank a sample on the Samples index page.
- The layout of the Shipments Sending and Receiving pages has been improved to enhance the user experience.
- A new “Research Testing” attribute can be added to any workflow. Samples run through a “Research Testing” workflow will not initiate reports being generated, nor changes to requisition status. Submit a Project/Change Request Form to have your workflow configured as a “Research Testing” workflow.
If your lab is not part of the Ovation Research Network yet and interested in helping turn remnant samples into data that accelerates the discovery of targeted diagnostics and therapies, reach out to your Ovation Account Manager for more information!
User Experience Improvements
PATIENT REPORTS
- Users with the “Report Re-Generation Status” permission can now choose to re-generate a report as a Final Report instead of the report always re-generating as a Corrected Report by default. This allows users the ability to track reports that were re-generated due to amendments versus changes that impact the report results.
OVATION PORTAL
- Ovation Portal users now see information related to requisitions entered into processing in a more straightforward format in which values are always below field name headers.
REQUISITIONS
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Users can now set a new Display Preference to "Filter Provider Accounts by Order Form Association." This option limits the available Provider Accounts to only those associated with the requisition template being used. Learn more in the Display Preferences Article >
REPORTING & ANALYTICS IMPROVEMENTS
- We removed the redundant “TAT” permission so that all users who have access to the “Analytics” permission now have access to the Turnaround Time Analytics by default.
- Users can now add “Collected By” field to the Requisition Report.
- The QC Workflow Report now displays all replicate results instead of just the first.
MISC
- Users who come across an “Unauthorized” page in Ovation LIMS and Ovation Portal will now see a link to our Troubleshooting Login Issues article.
As always, we're proud to partner with clinical laboratory teams who work hard every day to give individuals the answers and care they need.
If you have any questions or feedback about Release 40 or any of the minor improvements that we recapped here, send an email to support@ovation.io. We love to hear from you and we’re here to help!