Practical electronic information system and printed recording promote management accuracy in an early-stage...

It is particularly necessary for biomedical researchers to obtain applicable biosamples accurately and efficiently, especially from a biobank with multiple-disease catalogs. To optimize the retrieval procedure, especially in the early stages of a non-automatic biobank, we developed a procedure that combined the electronic information system with a graphically designed printed recording system, which assisted in retrieving the samples quickly in a visualized way. In this procedure, we designed tables depending on the structure of equipment and registered the corresponding information in the tables layer by layer. Different samples from different types of diseases were first registered in the electronic system with the specific pre-allocation and barcodes. Then they were stored in the allocated position using their respective barcodes. In this way, the sample number and the location information in the electronic database were completely matched with the printed record. When the samples are needed, it is convenient to check the electronic information with the printed record. This procedure provides a convenient way to record the sample information during its lifecycle, and helps the administrator to double check information about the sample. The current solution offers an easy way for the transformation of a non-automatic biobank from the small-scale early-stage to the large-scale highly-automated level.