Supercharging laboratory data

Diagnostic laboratories are a key data source for health information in both human and animal health. However, data application at the population or group level is often limited because reporting is primarily focused on individual cases or at a highly aggregated population level. This provides little opportunity for customised data exploration by end-users. While laboratory data will always be an opportunistic source of information for population health studies and interventions, advances in metadata collection and assembly with tools like LAB/savi are making laboratory data more usable.

To address this challenge LAB/savi provides a customer interface for laboratory testing results. A user can explore real-time test results defining areas and time frames, filter by specific criteria or compare genetic sequences of outbreaks. The first version of LAB/savi was developed to monitor swine health and includes PCR and sequencing results for Porcine Respiratory and Reproductive Syndrome (PRRS), as well as antimicrobial susceptibility testing outputs.

LAB/savi is an R Shiny application developed in close collaboration with stakeholders of the Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory of the University of Minnesota. The app is scalable to other species and diagnostic methods.  A key feature of LAB/savi is improved access to specialist data analysis such as the assessment of genetic relatedness or exploration of antimicrobial susceptibility trends.

Presentations