# 1. What is LIMS
The **Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS)** is a national digital platform designed to support and manage laboratory operations throughout the complete laboratory testing lifecycle.
The system supports the movement of laboratory information from the point at which a patient requires a laboratory investigation through ordering, sample collection, sample processing, testing, result verification, authorization, reporting, and synchronization with national health information systems.
In Malawi, the LIMS ecosystem consists primarily of **iBLIS at the facility level** and the **National Laboratory Information Management System (NLIMS) at the national level**.
At the facility level, iBLIS supports day-to-day laboratory operations, including patient registration, laboratory orders, sample tracking, barcode generation, analyzer interfacing, result entry, result validation, printing, and local reporting.
At the national level, NLIMS receives synchronized laboratory information from participating laboratories and provides national aggregation, reporting, dashboard visualization, analytics, and monitoring of laboratory performance.
The overall information flow can be represented as:
**[](https://bookstack.hismalawi.org/uploads/images/gallery/2026-08/lims-overview.png)**
This architecture enables laboratory information to move from individual laboratory processes into national-level information systems for patient management, monitoring, planning, and public health decision-making.