Challenges In Storing And Communicating Scientific Information In A Pharmaceutical Lab Essay.

You are a lab technician working in the development department for a pharmaceutical company that develops and produces new drugs.

The lab stores confidential information relating to drug development. It also stores personal and confidential information relating to volunteers who are used for drug trials.

Your manager has asked you to produce a report evaluating the challenges in storing and communicating the range of information recorded and processed within the laboratory, comparing the systems in the development laboratory to those in the company’s manufacturing department.

Useful Techniques for Recording and Processing Scientific Information

Useful scientific information is obtained from large data sets through, Software, Algorithms and Parallel programming. The methods COSHH records, Scientific data, Scientific apparatus records, Specification levels (Showalter and Larson, 2014), Report records, Quality assurance data, Security, Data Protection Act, Waste disposal records and Health and safety checks are used in recording and processing of large datasets of scientific information. Transformation of collected information into a useful form for the customer takes a number of dimensions as discussed:

• Collecting only the data deemed useful: Collecting useful information given a better position in the establishment of the data that is needed and the manner in which the data will be changed into information that is satisfactory to the needs of the customer (Muhsin, Sampath, and Gruber, 2015)
• Use of analytical tools: The analytical tools would be useful in the analysis of the information as well as the data available.
• Getting the Accurate Data: Accuracy or detail need to be managed to ensure that the analyst process is not overwhelmed with details or a lot of time and effort spent extracting details
• Conversion of Data into Information: This involves the analysis of the collected data. Various data analysis tools are adopted which are dependent on the type of data to be analyzed and converted into information (Li et al., 2016).

• Making decisions using the information: The customers will use the collected data and analyzed information in the assessment of what is important as far as their decision is concerned. This would go hand in hand with the determination of the sections or parts of the information that are deemed important to the decisions and how they would impact the success or failure of their initiative (Muhsin, Sampath, and Gruber, 2015).

Various techniques are used in the workplace laboratories in the storage and management of scientific information including computer systems, filling and Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS)

Communication is key to the success and smooth flow of work in any workplace laboratory. The choice on the communication nature greatly influences the outcomes of the work done. Communication between each other as well as with external customers or regulatory bodies is achievable through:

• Open communication: Open communication offers an opportunity of communicating with passion and expression how one feels. In such a forum, the audience will not only be listeners of what is being said but also see as well as feel the message.
• Emails: Enables the passage of messages to a different team, members without necessarily having to bring them out of their stations of work (Greiner, 2015)
• One on One: This is mainly adopted to ascertain that the point that needs to be passed is better understood
• Use of body language: Aids in faster as well as better communication.
• Use of presentations: Some messages are better grasped by some people when presented in the forms of sounds and pictures. The use of presentations including Microsoft PowerPoint in the communication with the team provides them an opportunity in making references to the message in case there seems to be limited clarify on a few issues (Greiner, 2015).

Regardless of the setting of communication, improvements on the way in which information may be communicated to fit the purposes are pegged on three main pillars: clarity, concise and compelling. This involves the use of a language that is understood by the listeners and hence the need to take into consideration the audience minding what they know and what they do not know. The audience would play major roles in the determination of what the speaker says so as to get the message across.

Data sharing of scientific information involve the circulation of information that is related to scientific research among various professionals in the same field. This comes with benefits that when attained are not only to the parties sharing the information but also scientific research at large. The benefits are as: improves the understandings of a laboratory finding and enhancing the pooling of data from various experiments to extend scientific discoveries beyond the much that can be delivered by a single study, improves the accuracy of scientific research (Muhsin, Sampath, and Gruber, 2015) and fulfils the obligations to the research participants

Among the most common barriers include cultural barriers, legal issues that touch on the privacy of patients as well as fears regarding the possible misuse of shared data (Showalter and Larson, 2014).

Scientific research, information and practice is often under the influence of ethical as well as bioethical considerations which should be availed to a third party to ensure safe storage of scientific information. Such are as patient identification, consent, duty to inform, an understanding of the limitations of the various tests and confidentiality.

Conclusion

Just like any other fields and research work, the storage as well as the communication of large amounts of data experiences a number of challenges which tend to hinder the retrieval and usage of such data. Among the challenges are boosting speed using an appliance, adapting to the new techniques, dividing files into chunks that are manageable and depending on virtualization

References

Greiner, B., 2015. Subject pool recruitment procedures: organizing experiments with ORSEE. Journal of the Economic Science Association, 1(1), pp.114-125

Li, P.C.Y., Collmann, J.R., Blake, J.W., Polyak, M.G., Wilson, J.M. and Yoon, J.I., Georgetown University, 2016. System and method for detecting, collecting, analyzing, and communicating event-related information. U.S. Patent 9,489,495

Muhsin, B., Sampath, A. and Gruber, T., Masimo Corp, 2015. Systems and methods for storing, analyzing, retrieving and displaying streaming medical data. U.S. Patent 9,142,117

Showalter, W. and Larson, A.L., Ventana Medical Systems Inc, 2014. Laboratory instrumentation information management and control network. U.S. Patent 8,719,053

Showalter, W. and Larson, A.L., Ventana Medical Systems Inc, 2014. Laboratory instrumentation information management and control network. U.S. Patent 8,812,329