Laboratory Operations

Systems do not share the information people need.

It comes up in every kind of lab we work with, from veterinary diagnostic to materials testing labs.

For the Maine Department of Transportation, the team that founded SynapticSci delivered the exchange between its laboratory records and the state’s transportation information system. Your first step is a thirty-minute conversation with an expert.

When a laboratory’s systems do not share what each one needs, people carry records across by hand, copies drift apart, and no one is sure which copy is right. We have connected analyzers to the record at University of Wisconsin Veterinary Care and built an exchange with the state’s transportation information system for Maine Department of Transportation. Start by agreeing which system owns each record, then talk with us about the first connection.

THEN · SYSTEMS DO NOT CONNECT A woman in white lifts a tray of small bottles from an open centrifuge in a tiled laboratory; trays of stoppered bottles fill the bench to her left and a shelf of reagent jars hangs above.
Digitally rendered from the archive photograph: Same tiled room and bench; a refrigerated floor-standing centrifuge with a touch panel and racks of barcoded vials and tubes replace the 1942 bottles and trays. NOW · CONNECTED SYSTEMSNOW · DIGITALLY RENDERED
Fig. 1 Vaccine production, 1942.
THEN · 1942 · Library of Congress · NOW · digitally renderedTHEN · 1942 · Library of Congress · Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Black-and-White Negatives · no known restrictions NOW · digitally rendered from the archive photograph above (Gemini 3 Pro Image, 2026-09-26): the room geometry, the camera and the people's positions are the photograph; everything else is generated. Not a photograph.

01The difficulty

People carry records from one system to the next

The information exists, but in a system that does not pass it to the one where it is needed. People carry it across by hand or work without it, and the people in the laboratory become the glue between its systems.

02Where it occurs

Wherever one system’s record is another system’s input

  • Analyzer results that the laboratory record needs.
  • Orders and results passing to and from a practice-management system.
  • Test results that an engineering or project system needs.
  • Requests, samples, and results kept in separate tools.

The laboratories that meet it first

Other problems are in the Laboratory Operations catalog.

03Why it matters

Two copies of a record drift apart

Once a record lives in two systems, someone has to decide which one owns it. Until that is settled, every copy has to be kept in step by hand. When results reach another system by being typed in again, the second copy can become the one that decisions are made from.

04Before changing it

Settle ownership before you connect anything

Agree which system owns each record. Then list what each connection has to carry, in which direction, and who may change the record at each end. We assess access, interfaces, and permissions for each system in the Understand phase, our on-site analysis of your workflow at a fixed scope and price, before we propose a connection.

Judge the result by whether each record has one owner and whether anyone still carries information between systems by hand.

05Approaches

From a process change to a new system

  1. Change the process

    When two systems both accept changes to the same record.

  2. Use a capability you already have

    When one system can already export or import what the other needs.

  3. Connect the systems

    When both stay.

  4. Add a focused tool

    When a single gap remains.

  5. Replace a system

    Only when connecting the systems you keep cannot give each record a clear owner.

06Tools and services

What fits, and when

delivered example
work delivered for an existing client and described on the Evidence page.
available approach
a product, module or service SynapticSci offers today.
scope to assess
something to establish with your laboratory in the Understand phase, before any tool is chosen.
  • delivered example Instrument interfaces Fits when an analyzer or a practice-management system holds information the laboratory record needs. Delivered for University of Wisconsin Veterinary Care.
  • delivered example Exchange with a transportation information system Fits when test results belong to projects tracked in a system outside the laboratory. Delivered for Maine Department of Transportation.
  • available approach LabSci Fits when the record other systems depend on needs a managed home. Explore LabSci
  • scope to assess Existing systems Fits when you keep a system and connect it. Integrations and connectors
  • available approach FormSense Fits when paper is the gap between systems. Explore FormSense

07Getting started

Start with one record that two systems both need

Start with the part of the workflow that needs attention. The work comes in three sizes.

  • An assessment finds which system owns each record and what each connection has to carry. That is our Understand phase.
  • A focused intervention connects one pair of systems, or changes the process so that one system owns a record.
  • A broader change adds software, implementation, data migration, and the ongoing services you choose.

We give a price once the work is sized to your records, interfaces, and users. The first step is a conversation with an expert about one record that two of your systems both need.

See pricing · Discuss the workflow

All Lab Notes

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