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The Development and Implementation of a Virtually Paperless Lab – Advantages and Disadvantages for a Core Facility
Citation:
ANDREWS, D. L. The Development and Implementation of a Virtually Paperless Lab – Advantages and Disadvantages for a Core Facility. Presented at EPA Quality Management Meeting, San Antonio, TX, May 12 - 14, 2009.
Impact/Purpose:
This abstract discusses how switching to E-Records impacts the work of the Agency in reducing supply and labor cost.
Description:
In the ever-increasing climate of being environmentally friendly and doing more with less, going paperless in the laboratory seems to be the wave of the future. However, are we truly prepared to go paperless? Can we find ways to ensure our records are indeed as defensible as their paper cousins? What measures do we need to take in order to insure the appropriate controls and long term storage of our current electronic records? This presentation focuses on an ELISA (enzyme linked immunosorbent assay) Core Facility, based in EPA’s National Health Effects Research Laboratory, in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. The history of the core and its move to e-records will be discussed, along with the advantages and problems noted along the way. Advantages we have noted have been not only the reduction of paper used, but also the ease of record transfer, locating records if misplaced by the end user, and reduction in storage space. Disadvantages noted were lag time in having everyone switch over to e-records, lack of a traditional paper trail caused a few problems, and lack of electronic signatures, or ability to lock the data. Solutions that were implemented will be discussed, most notably, how to use existing Agency standard software to work towards traceability and accountability in the arena of e-records. This is an abstract for presentation which has been reviewed by the U.S. EPA; views expressed do not necessarily represent EPA policy.