One major challenge you're likely experiencing in your histology lab is that you're seeing tremendous growth thanks to the support of sponsors on your studies. However, do you really know how you're going to keep up with demands if you stay in your current laboratory?

When feeling lab growing pains, storage starts to become one of the biggest hurdles.  Attempting to store your own study specimens can become a major burden, especially if you don't have proper storage equipment available.

Not being able to properly store your specimens eventually leads to violating GLP, which you obviously strive to work toward every day.  So where do you turn if you no longer have enough space for your specimens?  You need to know why using an archiving facility instead of storing specimens yourself is the better option.

Take a look at why you should, and how you could ruin your specimens if you don't.

Dealing With Budgetary Constraints

Despite seeing tremendous growth in your histology lab lately, you're still likely boxed in to budgetary constraints. Because of this, you simply don't have the money to expand the size of your lab immediately.

Because you're busier than ever with conducting studies, all those specimens you have waiting for storage have no safe place to go. Trying to find space for ambient material is only going to lead to storage in precarious places where they could get in the way or worse, get misplaced.

When you start stacking your archives in other busy work areas, this only disrupts lab staff work-flow. These archives could also become damaged if someone happens to move them out of necessity and ends up dropping a storage container.

What's so great about outsourcing is you can get another lab facility with extensive storage space to safely store every specimen you have. Outsourced archive facilities go beyond just storing ambient material, though.

Storage Equipment Needs

Sometimes storing study specimens means you need more than just extra space. It may also require freezer and refrigeration units to properly care for each piece of material. This equipment is extremely expensive, and you may need multiple freezers and refrigerators to accommodate the excessive demand.

Outsourcing this to an archiving facility assures you'll have state-of-the-art equipment so it won't suddenly break down on you or maybe you don’t have backup generators in your facility when the power goes out. Maybe you already own older freezers and refrigerators, though realize they have no stability in maintaining the right temperature. No matter if your specimens require refrigeration at 4 degrees Celsius or deep freezing at -80 degrees Celsius, a quality archiving facility has up-to-date units that are regularly maintained to prevent disastrous mistakes.

Keeping Your Archives Secure

Another cost-cutting measure in your lab could come in security. This costs more money than you think, setting up fire alarm systems using special equipment such as an FM-200 system or video surveillance technology.

If you're at a point where all the money you have has to go into immediate lab priorities, you're making your archives extremely vulnerable to a natural or man-made disaster.

Archiving facilities already have these services available, plus superior burglary prevention and fire alarm technologies. Most of all, you'll have automated monitoring to detect for power failures and the smallest of temperature changes. Now you won't play risk and come to work the next morning to find your specimens ruined.

Suppressing Fires

Your lab may already have fire hazards posing major concerns if you have no money to invest in alarm systems or suppression capability. Having fire suppression technology is a must so you can stop a fire before it begins to spread and destroy your archives. Your outsourced archiving facility is going to use fire suppression systems to assure fires do not spread.

Contact us at HSRL to inquire about our own archiving facility options that can save your lab's reputation for years to come.