INCIENSA SILAB
Client: INCIENSA
Category: End-to-End Solutions
Location: Costa Rica
The problem
Even before the unusual operating conditions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic in almost all organizations in the country, the technological renewal of its laboratory information system (SILAB), which dates back 20 years, was urgent for Inciensa. with very outdated concepts and technological elements.
The purpose of this renovation was to ensure continuity in operations, incorporate new functionalities and modernize the infrastructure using a WEB architecture with an adaptive design that would allow operating from mobile devices. In addition, it was strategic to have a friendly and easy-to-use user interface, which would include facilities for agile and productive typing, and integrate security features that result in a robust and auditable system to track the actions carried out by internal and external users.
The purpose of this renovation was to ensure continuity in operations, incorporate new functionalities and modernize the infrastructure using a WEB architecture with an adaptive design that would allow operating from mobile devices. In addition, it was strategic to have a friendly and easy-to-use user interface, which would include facilities for agile and productive typing, and integrate security features that result in a robust and auditable system to track the actions carried out by internal and external users.
The result
There are several factors that intervened to successfully execute this project, one of them was the adoption of a collaborative and close work scheme between Inciensa's expert staff and consultants, as dictated by modern methodologies that seek to implement agile organizations. This characteristic was fundamental given that the business problem to be solved is highly specialized and of a particular technical complexity, which represented a latent risk for the execution of the project.
Another element that contributed to achieving the excellent results was the execution of the project under an iterative approach. This approach allowed the user to gradually get to know the elements of the system and gradually assimilate the new work proposal. In the same way, it also allowed the preparation of configuration and parameterization instruments necessary for the new platform. In each of these iterations, the consulting team approached with special care and seriousness the tasks related to gathering requirements, design validation through prototypes, component construction, and quality control tasks.
The end result was a transparent transition for the user by enabling SILAB-Web with AZURE infrastructure services in the cloud, without impacting the Incense service level, which was critical, especially considering that this start-up was carried out in times of pandemic.
When SILAB-Web was launched, it had synchronization services to connect with the old sample receipt module (USEC- Customer Service). The good results obtained with the project motivated Inciensa to formulate another project to modernize this component. Thus, under the same model of execution by iterations and with teamwork, the SIREM (Sample Registration System) was built and, as with its predecessor, we achieved a clean transition of users from the old platform to the new environment.
Another element that contributed to achieving the excellent results was the execution of the project under an iterative approach. This approach allowed the user to gradually get to know the elements of the system and gradually assimilate the new work proposal. In the same way, it also allowed the preparation of configuration and parameterization instruments necessary for the new platform. In each of these iterations, the consulting team approached with special care and seriousness the tasks related to gathering requirements, design validation through prototypes, component construction, and quality control tasks.
The end result was a transparent transition for the user by enabling SILAB-Web with AZURE infrastructure services in the cloud, without impacting the Incense service level, which was critical, especially considering that this start-up was carried out in times of pandemic.
When SILAB-Web was launched, it had synchronization services to connect with the old sample receipt module (USEC- Customer Service). The good results obtained with the project motivated Inciensa to formulate another project to modernize this component. Thus, under the same model of execution by iterations and with teamwork, the SIREM (Sample Registration System) was built and, as with its predecessor, we achieved a clean transition of users from the old platform to the new environment.
Impact
The facilities incorporated in the SILAB-Web for the recording of results and to support the tasks of generation and communication of laboratory reports have positively impacted the distribution of the time of the officials in the different National Reference Centers.
The modernization of the SIREM implied new work paradigms in the reception of samples that have been successfully adopted by the users. The learning curve was minimal thanks to the intuitiveness of the adopted user interface. Additionally, users have considered the benefits of publishing on the Web to be very valuable.
One of the highest points in this comprehensive renovation has been the availability of information from the Data Warehouse and its presentation through executive reports or dashboards built to interact with historical data. Based on the authentication and security facilities, these functionalities can be authorized to internal and external users, which represents an important change in the service channels that the organization had enabled.
The modernization of the SIREM implied new work paradigms in the reception of samples that have been successfully adopted by the users. The learning curve was minimal thanks to the intuitiveness of the adopted user interface. Additionally, users have considered the benefits of publishing on the Web to be very valuable.
One of the highest points in this comprehensive renovation has been the availability of information from the Data Warehouse and its presentation through executive reports or dashboards built to interact with historical data. Based on the authentication and security facilities, these functionalities can be authorized to internal and external users, which represents an important change in the service channels that the organization had enabled.
Used technology
The SILAB system was built with Microsoft technologies and through the Grupo Asesor FastWork framework implemented in a cloud infrastructure in Azure. The data warehouse is based on multidimensional structures fed with data that is extracted (ETL's) from the transactional database, with a data mining or visualization layer in Power BI Embedded.
Visual Studio 2019, Microsoft C# .Net Framework 4.7, .Net Core 3.1, SQL Server 2019 (DB, SSRS and SSIS), Azure AppService, Azure Active Directory, Azure Active Directory B2C, Azure Front Door, Azure SQL Database, Azure Functions, Azure Cache for Redis, Azure KeyVault, Azure Blob Storage, Power BI Embedded, Javascript, Power BI Service, ASP.NET MVC, Web API Rest.
Visual Studio 2019, Microsoft C# .Net Framework 4.7, .Net Core 3.1, SQL Server 2019 (DB, SSRS and SSIS), Azure AppService, Azure Active Directory, Azure Active Directory B2C, Azure Front Door, Azure SQL Database, Azure Functions, Azure Cache for Redis, Azure KeyVault, Azure Blob Storage, Power BI Embedded, Javascript, Power BI Service, ASP.NET MVC, Web API Rest.
