Lab Informatics Tech Debt: How to Manage and Minimize It

What Is Tech Debt in Lab Informatics—and How Does It Happen?

Technical debt (tech debt) is the hidden cost of quick fixes and short-term decisions in software development, implementation, or customization. In lab informatics, it can creep in when Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS) and other software aren’t designed with long-term scalability in mind.

Tech debt often shows up as:

• Outdated Systems – Legacy LIMS that no longer meet current needs or integrate with modern tools.
• Excessive Customization – Custom code that solves immediate issues but makes future upgrades difficult.
• Inconsistent Data Management – Poorly structured data models that cause inefficiencies and errors.
• Manual Workarounds – Temporary fixes that become permanent bottlenecks.
• Fragmented Systems – Disconnected platforms requiring duplicate data entry and inefficient workflows.

The term "debt" fits because, like financial debt, you’re borrowing time—choosing a faster solution now at the cost of dealing with bigger challenges later. Tech debt itself isn’t bad; it’s a tool. But without a plan to manage it, it compounds over time, slowing operations, increasing costs, and risking compliance.

That’s why having a Tech Debt Plan is critical. If you take on tech debt for a short-term gain, make sure you also plan how to resolve it before it impacts efficiency.

As labs grow and adopt more technology, tech debt can accumulate. Left unchecked, it can stifle innovation and hinder performance. The good news? With the right strategies, you can identify, manage, and prevent tech debt—keeping your lab efficient, scalable, and ready for the future.

Let’s explore how tech debt impacts laboratory informatics and strategies for managing it effectively.

How Tech Debt Impacts Laboratories

Unchecked tech debt in informatics can have far-reaching consequences for laboratories, including:

• Increased Costs: Maintaining outdated or overly complex systems frequently requires more resources, including IT support and manual intervention.
  Companies often incur an additional 10% to 20% in expenses to address technical debt during projects. McKinsey & Company
• Developer Time Wastage: Tech debt forces developers to spend excessive time fixing recurring issues, navigating outdated code, and managing complex workarounds instead of higher-value work.
  Studies estimate that organizations waste between 23% and 42% of their development time managing technical debt. Forbes
• Reduced Efficiency: Disconnected systems due to tech debt force manual data transfers, duplicate entries, and slow reporting, leading to inefficiencies, errors, and delays in lab workflows and decision-making.
  A survey by CompTIA found that 74% of organizations face challenges due to technical debt, with 42% identifying it as a significant obstacle. The same study highlighted that 78% of organizations are negatively impacted by ad hoc technology approaches, which can exacerbate system disconnections and inefficiencies. comptia.org
• Compliance Risks: Aging systems may fail to meet evolving regulatory requirements, putting the lab at risk of audits or penalties. Poorly maintained or undocumented code can lead to data integrity issues, audit failures, and violations of industry regulations (e.g., FDA 21 CFR Part 11, GxP). If critical workflows or electronic records are unreliable due to tech debt, labs risk costly penalties, failed inspections, and compromised patient or product safety.
  Low-quality code can contain up to 15 times more defects than high-quality code, leading to increased maintenance efforts and costs. arXiv
• Scalability Challenges: Technical debt can significantly impede a laboratory's ability to scale operations, often leading to longer sample turnaround time and constrained throughput.
  Tech debt cuts time spent on new development by up to 40%, leading to inefficiencies that hinder scalability. sourcery.ai
• Stifled Innovation: Time and resources spent managing tech debt take away from opportunities to implement new technologies or improve processes.
  Approximately 70% of organizations report that technical debt substantially hampers their ability to innovate. Protiviti

Strategies for Managing Tech Debt

While tech debt is nearly inevitable in dynamic lab environments, it can be effectively managed with a balanced approach. What do we mean by balanced? Two core aspects of tech debt must be addressed together for optimal results:

1. Continuous System Maintenance – As business processes, data, and needs evolve, systems must be actively maintained to ensure smooth, efficient daily operations.
2. Strategic Reassessment – Periodic (annual) evaluations are necessary to keep systems aligned with long-term business objectives and changing industry demands.

Focusing solely on system maintenance can lead to a drift in strategic direction, while relying only on high-level planning risks operational inefficiencies.

To avoid both pitfalls, labs need to combine daily administration with regular strategic reviews. 

Here are some actionable steps labs can take to strike that balance:

1. Create a Continuous Maintenance Plan for Lab Systems
   • Implement daily checks and monitoring to ensure systems are running smoothly and that any issues are quickly addressed.
   • Establish a structured process to manage changes as lab workflows evolve, including data handling, instrument integrations, and user needs.
   • Automate routine data transfers or reporting tasks to reduce manual work and minimize the chance for errors.
     
     
2. Schedule Annual System Reviews for Alignment with Lab Goals
   • Conduct yearly assessments to ensure the lab’s informatics systems are meeting the long-term objectives, such as scaling operations or improving compliance.
   • Re-evaluate the system architecture to determine if it supports any new or shifting research needs, equipment, or regulatory requirements.
   • Update the lab’s technology strategy to keep systems future-ready and adaptable to changing goals.
     
     
3. Encourage Ongoing Collaboration Between Operations and IT Teams
   • Facilitate regular meetings between lab operations and IT teams to align daily system maintenance with the lab’s strategic objectives.
   • Foster communication between departments to identify any gaps or inefficiencies and ensure that both immediate needs and future plans are considered.
     
     
4. Track Efficiency and Alignment with Key Metrics
   • Define performance indicators that measure both system uptime and operational efficiency, ensuring the lab’s objectives are being met.
   • Regularly review these metrics to ensure that tech debt is being managed without sacrificing day-to-day performance or long-term goals.
     
     
5. Maintain Detailed Documentation for Smooth Operations
   • Keep comprehensive records of lab system configurations, maintenance actions, and any strategic changes.
   • Ensure that everyone involved in the system's upkeep can quickly understand the history of decisions, changes, and how the system has evolved over time.
     
     
6. Balance New Development with System Refinements
   • Dedicate time and resources to improve and refactor existing systems alongside developing new features or capabilities.
   • Prioritize small, iterative changes that avoid disrupting lab operations, ensuring smooth and continuous performance.
     
     

7. Engage with Vendors

   • Work closely with your informatics vendors to understand upgrade paths, best practices, and available support. Vendors can provide insights into minimizing tech debt and ensuring your system remains future-ready.

By integrating these practices into lab operations, teams can effectively manage tech debt, enhance efficiency, and ensure that the lab’s systems remain aligned with both immediate and long-term goals.

Proactive Approaches to Preventing Tech Debt

Managing tech debt is essential, but preventing it from accumulating in the first place is even better. Here’s how labs can adopt a proactive approach:

• Future-Proof Your Choices: Select systems with scalability, interoperability, and long-term support in mind.
• Involve Stakeholders Early: Engage lab staff, IT teams, and compliance officers during system selection and implementation to avoid mismatched requirements.
• Embrace Agile Practices: Use iterative and flexible project management approaches to implement changes gradually and adapt to evolving needs.
• Maintain a Tech Roadmap: Plan for regular updates, integrations, and system evaluations to keep your informatics stack aligned with organizational goals.

What to Look for in Software to Avoid Accumulating Technical Debt

When purchasing laboratory informatics software, it’s crucial to evaluate features and attributes that reduce the risk of technical debt. Use this checklist to guide your decision-making process:

Architecture and Scalability

• Modular Design: Supports modularity for easy updates and scalability.
• Service Oriented Architecture: Enables independent development and deployment of components.
• Scalability: Adapts to increasing user or data loads without performance degradation.
• APIs and Integration Capabilities: Provides robust APIs for seamless integration with other tools.

Development Practices

• Adherence to Standards: Built on industry best practices and coding standards.
• Documentation: Includes comprehensive and up-to-date documentation for developers.
• Continuous Enhancements: Regular updates to address bugs and improve functionality.
• Configurability: Allows for non-intrusive modifications without changing core code.

Maintenance and Support

• Support Team Availability: Access to a knowledgeable and responsive support team.
• Upgrade Path: Clearly defined upgrade process for staying current with the latest technology.
• Maintenance Costs: Transparent and reasonable costs for ongoing maintenance and updates.

Performance and Reliability

• Error Handling: Robust mechanisms to manage and recover from errors.
• Testing Frameworks: Includes built-in tools for testing and ensuring reliability.
• Monitoring and Metrics: Features for tracking system performance and identifying bottlenecks.

Security

• Compliance: Facilitates compliance with relevant regulatory standards (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA, ISO 27001) with features like immutable audit trails and services like Computer System Validation. 
• Data Encryption: Provides strong encryption for data at rest and in transit.
• Vulnerability Management: Regular updates to address security vulnerabilities.

User Experience

• Intuitive Interface: User-friendly design to reduce training time and errors.
• Adaptability: Flexible to different workflows and organizational needs.

Technical Debt Prevention

• Automated Testing: Supports automated testing to catch issues early.
• Backward Compatibility: Avoids breaking changes with new updates or versions.

Cost and ROI

• Total Cost of Ownership: Transparent pricing for licensing, implementation, and ongoing maintenance.
• ROI Analysis: Demonstrated value and measurable outcomes from adopting the software.

By ensuring the software you purchase checks these boxes, you can minimize the risk of accumulating technical debt and set your organization up for long-term success.

Conclusion

Technical debt is an ever present risk of managing complex informatics systems, but it doesn’t have to be a roadblock to success. By identifying and addressing tech debt strategically, laboratories can maintain efficient, compliant, and scalable operations. With the right tools and practices, you can transform tech debt from a burden into an opportunity for continuous improvement and innovation.

Labbit offers a powerful solution for mitigating tech debt in laboratories, thanks to its no-code BPMN workflow configuration and cloud-based infrastructure. These features allow labs to easily adapt and customize their workflows without the need for coding or extensive IT involvement, reducing the risk of technical debt accumulation. Labbit’s seamless integration with other software systems and lab instruments ensures smooth data flow, eliminating the inefficiencies and errors often arising from disconnected systems. Additionally, its robust change management processes ensure that any updates or system modifications are executed efficiently and without disrupting ongoing operations. With strong support from the experienced team at Semaphore, labs benefit from expert guidance, ensuring that their systems remain aligned with both operational and strategic goals. 

Interested in learning how to manage lab informatics tech debt in more depth? Join our upcoming webinar, where we’ll dive into actionable strategies and best practices that can help your lab stay efficient, compliant, and future-ready.