Efficiency of an Online Chain of Custody Service

Oral Presentation

Prepared by S. Cocanour
Promium, 3350 Monte Villa Parkway, Woodiville, Washington, 98072, United States


Contact Information: marketing@promium.com; 425-286-9200


ABSTRACT

A web-based online service provides an efficient, accurate, and reliable process to replace paper-based chains of custody. Mr. Cocanour will describe the components and benefits of EnviroChain from Promium, an online chain of custody service for laboratories and their clients.

For at least the last forty years, laboratories have been using paper chains of custody (CoC) to manage samples. Thousands of paper CoCs are handled every year in most labs. That paper-based system is inefficient—data must be entered on the paper and then again in the LIMS, inaccurate—every time data is hand-written and then transcribed repeatedly creates potential for data entry errors, and unreliable—with paper CoCs getting damaged or lost.

A web-based electronic chain of custody service not only addresses those issues, it also delivers a rich source of data in near real-time for laboratory project planning and sample management. The result is a reduction in costs and headaches. With the explosion in the use of smartphones and tablets, there is finally a field technology that can truly leverage web applications for managing chains of custody. Coupled with a tight integration with a LIMS, the flow of data is accelerated from the field to final report.