VALAB
Intelligent Autoverification of Medical Reports

Artificial intelligence has gained importance in recent years in the field of health, including medical laboratories. Valab^®, an intelligent autoverification solution, meets the growing need for efficiency and innovation in today's medical laboratories by automating the post-analytical phase. It aims to standardise the process, reduce errors, and save time.

With over 30 years of experience, VALAB is a leader in the French market, providing a unique solution with no equal on the market. This highlights its expertise and commitment to sustainability. Currently adopted in over 60 percent of French hospitals and 50 percent in private laboratories, Valab^® is implemented in over 360 laboratories, including over 280 located nationally and 80 abroad, spanning 10 countries.

Valab^® is an artificial intelligence expert system that autoverifies medical reports by filtering and alerting for critical and debatable values. It ensures the harmonisation of medical validation, reduces the number of errors, saves time and accelerates the turnaround time (TAT), enhancing the efficiency and security of the medical validation.

Building upon its capabilities, Valab^® operates as a turnkey solution, ready for use with over 25,000 predefined rules and a catalogue containing more than 350 preconfigured tests. The rules categorised into demographic, contextual and inter-parameter aspects are embedded in the system and are combinatory, allowing the autoverification of medical reports. Valab^® correlates test results among them and puts them in relation to factors such as demographics, patient history (previous result), the report’s origin, prescriber's speciality, etc.

In contrast to boolean rules (and, or/not, if) found in the majority of laboratory information system (LIS) modules, Valab^® allows complex and infinite combinations in considering the coherence of every piece of information present in medical reports. Reports data are obtained from the LIS with which Valab^® communicates bidirectionally. Twenty-eight connections have already been developed with different LIS systems distributed across 10 countries, providing the company with valuable experience to support LIS providers in this process.

“Valab^® is a solution suitable for both private and public medical laboratories, accommodating volumes ranging from a few hundred to over 25,000 validated medical reports per day, demonstrating its adaptability to various working methods,” says Eric Rogari, director, VALAB.

To date, Valab^® autoverifies more than 820,000 medical reports daily for its user base.

The system is a transparent and customisable solution, adapting to the needs (type of activity and patient population) and expectations (regulations) of the laboratories. Users can access the core of Valab^®, enabling them to modify, delete or create new tests and rules which can be seamlessly integrated with the existing rules in the system. In parallel, the VALAB biological unit is actively involved in modelling and qualifying new tests and their associated rules according to client requests. The qualification process involves various steps, including state-of-art, pre-modelling, integration into the Valab^® master, and user experience testing. The qualification of available rules avoids a time-consuming process for the validation specialist and ensures a guarantee and peace of mind for users.

The validation specialist can obtain a comprehensive view of the process within their laboratory, thanks to statistics and the BI Module available in Valab^®. These statistics encompass a general overview and also specific data parameter by parameter. This extensive range of statistics allows users to assess the operational status of Valab® and facilitate optimisation based on laboratories’ needs and activities.

VALAB strongly emphasises rapid and accurate medical validation involving patient health data. The system is designed to be deterministic, guaranteeing reliable results. In this way, VALAB assists laboratories in their ISO 15189 accreditation for the validation process through the initial Valab^® training and validation guide, reassuring and securing the user on the approach to obtaining a qualified and efficient Valab^®. Its customer service, with remarkable responsiveness, ensures effective support at every step of the clients' journey in using their Valab^®. The company has a very low turnover, reassuring clients as it demonstrates accumulated experience for each of the collaborators in the company. All VALAB services have been internalised and ISO 9001 certified since their creation, indicating mastery and quality in their processes and guaranteeing trust and security for the user. VALAB sells a robust, sustainable product that is constantly evolving and is an expert in biological validation in the post-analytical phase.