Background
The modern pre-clinical
pathology study may generate hundreds or even thousands of individual “samples”
that must be processed and managed in a GLP compliant manner. This is a major
undertaking and one that most companies carryout with some type of paper-based
system. Computerizing such tracking and record keeping eliminates these paper
records, allows samples to be located more easily across multiple laboratories
and sites and provides for a very comprehensive audit trail and “chain of
custody” for each item.
Matrix Track-IT
Benefits
Matrix Track-IT
benefits can be summarized as:
Please email us at matrix@autoscribe.co.uk to discuss your
requirements further and to book your personal demonstration.
Matrix Track-IT
supports your entire process including; entry of study design, allocation of
animals to each dosage group, scheduling of tissue collection, assigning tissues
to cassettes, creating slides from cassettes and eventually maintaining your
study inventory, including your slide archive. It records completion of each
task at every step, who did it, when and any notes recorded.
Tissues may be
collected, labeled, trimmed and placed into storage. Cassettes may be labeled,
loaded with tissues, embedded, and stored. Slides are labeled (usually with a
barcode etched with a laser), loaded according to your rules, stained and sent
to the pathologists for reading. Once they are read, they may be tracked back
and checked into the archive. Matrix Track-IT supports instances where samples
from more than one cassette are contained on one slide and the reverse, where
samples form one cassette may be contained on several sides.
A note may be
attached to any tissue, cassette or slide at any step of the process.
Additionally, an image may be attached, that shows the exact location of a
lesion found in the tissue.
“Special
requests” for samples required in addition to those required by the study
protocol such as re-cuts or different staining may be entered at any time and
tracked along with all the other samples in the study.
Once all the
samples have been collected and all the slides have been read, then Matrix
Track-IT allows for a complete study inventory to be carried out prior to
placing all of the samples into storage.
In many
instances, the study design – dosage groups, subject ID’s are contained in some
other “in-life” system and this information can be passed electronically into
Matrix Track-IT, so as to reduce manual data entry and associated
errors.
The Product
Matrix Track-IT software from
Autoscribe is a single, very flexible, software product that allows the exact
same program and code to be configured to the needs of these different
applications. Totally different fields and labels may be created using the
uniquely powerful Matrix “OneTime Configuration” tools, so as to support these
various applications, all using exactly the same source code. Different
localizations and languages are also supported. The system may be deployed over
the desktop and/or web delivering exactly the same user experience without
writing any custom code or esoteric scripts. OneTime Configuration ensures that
the configuration of workflows, screens and menus needs to be done once only for
both the desktop and web interfaces.
Supported Platforms
¨
Databases: Oracle or SQL Server 2005
¨
Clients: Windows XP desktop or deployed via
Citrix or Terminal Services
¨
Internet / Intranet: IE 6 or later with
IIS
Please email us at matrix@autoscribe.co.uk to
discuss your requirements further and to book your personal
demonstration. The uniquely configurable Matrix
Track-IT software product has been configured to provide tracking and
reporting for samples of all types in such an environment. Samples can be of
virtually any type, from wet tissues, to embedded tissues in cassettes and/or
slides as well as frozen fluids such as urine or proteins. Once a sample is
entered into the Matrix database, labels including barcodes may be printed and
attached, allowing the location and ownership to be constantly updated as it is
processed with full version control and auditing. It becomes an easy task to
determine at what stage in the process a particular sample may be, where it is
located and who to call to request it. |
