Information Technology in Laboratory Medicine: Development of a stand-alone application for the management of the traceability and outcomes of SARS-COV-2 swabs sent for analysis to external Structures

During the emergency for SARS-COV-2 the high number of samples from different applicants related to the internal analytical capacity, initially limited and dedicated to inpatients, the emergency room and triage tents, has lead for the analysis of a large number of swabs to be entrusted to IZSLER, a structure with high skills and adequate technology for massive virological analyses The need to trace these samples was immediately clear, given by the multiple applicants to the laboratory Service, for which complete traceability had to be guaranteed from check-in until delivery of the result to the correct subject The initial table in Excel (Microsoft) used in the early days has been replaced by an application (TraceCOVID) conceived and developed by our laboratory TraceCOVID was written in Visual Basic NET (Microsoft) initially using a relational SQLlite database and, subsequently, SQL Oracle as the amount of data and the number of accesses to the application by different users required a more performing database The application has an integration with the LIS (Dedalus) to receive samples' information Actually it manages the sample check-in in the laboratory and the check-out in the preparation of shipment's list and the accompanying sheet (with barcode, name, surname and origin) plus a second excel file sent via SFTP allowing IZSLER to manage the samples with their systems The results from the IZSLER are returned via SFTP in an excel file which TraceCOVID automatically import, associate the report with the patient and send an email for each patient containing the outcome The application offers the possibility to print the report if necessary as well as the possibility of entering all the information (patient data and outcome) manually There is also a statistics section that monitors the number of samples and outcomes generating different types of outputs At the request of the Administrative Offices, a data export function consistent with the format requested by the Lombardy Region was also included The emergency for COVID19 has highlighted how the presence of computer skills in the laboratory has made it possible to cope with a critical aspect regarding the swabs' management and allows efficient information flows to the competent health authorities