Business Process Flow Diagrams in Tissue Bank Informatics System Design, and Identification and Communication of Best Practices: The Pharmaceutical Industry Experience

Abstract

Pfizer, Inc.'s Tissue Bank, in conjunction with Pfizer's BioBank (biofluid repository), endeavored to create an overarching internal software package to cover all general functions of both research facilities, including sample receipt, reconciliation, processing, storage, and ordering. Business process flow diagrams were developed by the Tissue Bank and Informatics teams as a way of characterizing best practices both within the Bank and in its interactions with key internal and external stakeholders. Besides serving as a first step for the software development, such formalized process maps greatly assisted the identification and communication of best practices and the optimization of current procedures. The diagrams shared here could assist other biospecimen research repositories (both pharmaceutical and other settings) for comparative purposes or as a guide to successful informatics design. Therefore, it is recommended that biorepositories consider establishing formalized business process flow diagrams for their laboratories, to address these objectives of communication and strategy.

A New Paradigm for Biospecimen Banking in the Personalized Medicine Era

“…However, philanthropic sources of support should be considered, and business process flow diagrams can be valuable in promoting the program and implementing it successfully. 7 However, in our opinion, financial support from the hospital administration is appropriate and critical for 2 reasons. First, biobanking itself (although performed under the oversight of pathologists) is becoming an integral part of the hospital infrastructure required to support all clinical departments.…”

Process Mapping in Healthcare: A Systematic Review

“…[68,72,74,80,86,90,[105][106][107] The use of PM before the implementation of information systems (IS) to help project members with diverse backgrounds achieve a shared understanding of the system has been reported as crucial for solving design challenges. [82,[108][109][110][111][112] Some studies describe how PM has also been used to assess actual care processes against recognized evidence-based standards. [72,93] Reviewed studies also show how if used throughout the entire project, PM can play a role in the success of improvement initiatives by supporting continuous improvement.…”

“…Some studies report that PM supported the effective design of HIT by enhancing the involvement of process stakeholders. [108][109][110][111][112]115] Studies also describe how greater understanding of different perspectives provided by PM encouraged a culture of ownership and responsibility for improvement work. [35,74,80,86,98,116,117] For example, within ICP projects, PM allowed the clari cation and reassessment of the roles and responsibilities within the team.…”

The evolution of biobanking best practices

“…Informatics for biobanking covers several critical areas: biospecimen tracking; data collection (clinical, specimen quality-related, demographic) and the identification of data elements necessary for each study; data security and protection of privacy; and interoperability of systems [9, Section B.6.1;21]. The interoperability of biobanking informatics systems allows the exchange of data among for example biobanks that are operating within a network.…”