User:Shawndouglas/sandbox/sublevel4

In the previous section, we noted that a vendor will often — but not always — include the industries their solutions serve on the vendor’s website. When a vendor takes the time to present how their solution provides functionality beneficial to one or more industries, it allows potential buyers to make more informed decisions early on in their research process. Those potential buyers can also contact a vendor directly to ask them how their solutions fulfill the needs of a clinical diagnostic or research laboratory like yours, and buyers can even ask the vendor to provide references of labs they have served in the buyer’s industry.

You may find some vendors take a one-size-fits-all approach to their clinical diagnostic or research LIMS. Depending on how thorough and all-encompassing their development team is in providing functionality, you may or may not find more granular features specific to your clinical lab and its area of expertise. The workflow needs of an anatomical pathology lab will differ slightly from those of a blood banking lab, and the LIMS used in those contexts will ideally have slightly different features to accommodate those lab types.

The following subsections examine the more common lab types that make up the realm of clinical diagnostics and research, as well as the unique industry-based functionality required of a LIMS.