Uganda makes more strides in the health laboratory sector

Aug 26, 2015

On August 27, 2015 Uganda will be celebrating the World Accreditation Day (WAD), the first of its kind in the history of the country.

By Lilian Bulage

August 27, 2015 Uganda will be celebrating the World Accreditation Day (WAD), the first of its kind in the history of the country.

The theme for this year focuses on delivering confidence in health and social care.
This day is celebrated globally on June 9, annually as a global initiative, jointly established by the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) and the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC), to raise awareness of the importance of accreditation.

The expanding global population growth and the increased life expectancy are one of the key factors driving the increasing need to provide reassuring, consistent and cost-effective health and social care. And this will grow in magnitude and complexity.

Therefore, this calls for strengthening provision of confidence in the delivery of competent services to patients, families, regulators and governments. And accreditation within the health and social sector supports this kind of assurance. Accreditation is the independent and impartial evaluation of an organizations competence in relation to specific activities or services.

It ensures that users of the service receive a consistent high level of care, with quality patient outcomes at its core. It provides an essential tool for healthcare providers to demonstrate that they have undergone a rigorous process to ensure that their patients consistently receive high quality services delivered by competent staff working in safe environments.

The key issues of concern addressed by accreditation in the health and social sector are; Is the provision of health and social care safe for patients and staff?, Just how accurate and reliable are the
outcomes or test results?, Are there measures in place to prevent misdiagnosis?, What proof is there that confidential information is handled appropriately and remains confidential?, Are any complaints taken seriously and acted upon?, Is high quality, cost effective care achievable?, What reassurance is there that the correct patient care pathways are being followed?.

Ministry of Health Uganda adopted the Stepwise Laboratory Quality Improvement Process Towards Accreditation (SLIPTA) approach to encourage its medical and public health laboratories to achieve accreditation since 2011 to date. SLIPTA is a framework for improving and measuring quality of medical and public health laboratories in Africa to achieve accreditation. And the National Strengthening Laboratory Management Towards Accreditation (SLMTA) is the approach being used to initiate laboratories into establishing Quality Management Systems (QMS). A QMS is expressed as the organizational structure, policies, procedures, processes and resources needed to implement quality management. QMS are one of the major requirements in achieving international accreditation.

So far, 5 laboratories have been accredited and amongst them was the National Tuberculosis Reference Laboratory (NTRL) that was also designated as a Supra National TB Reference Laboratory by World Health Organization WHO in 2011, making it the first public health laboratory to achieve the highest level of quality in the country and region.  In 2015, 8 laboratories underwent rigorous audits by ASLM (African Society of Laboratory Medicine) one of the internationally recognized auditing bodies and three of the laboratories were recommended to prepare for international accreditation. More 103 laboratories have been enrolled t into the SLMTA as a step towards accreditation.

The number of medical and public health care laboratories that have embraced accreditation are few compared to the overall number in the country. Accreditation in the health and social care should be viewed as a tool for reassurance of confidence at all levels of management and by all the recipients of care and should be embraced by all private and government service care providers, implementing partners and funding agencies.

The writer is Fellow on MakSPH-MoH-CDC Public Health Fellowship Program – Field Epidemiology Track, attached to the Central Public Health Laboratories (CPHL), Ministry of Health

 

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});