Popular Keywords:

Quality in diagnostic centres is as important as the diagnosis of any disease and depends on diagnostic labs report. Good quality helps the diagnostic labs to ensure reliable, accurate, and timely diagnostic test results which can help the patient and the clinicians to come to the correct diagnosis.

What can be done to ensure good quality practice?

Quality maintenance in the diagnostic laboratory is not just a single step but it is a continuous process that must be done daily and at every step. It starts right from the beginning of validation of several tests done at the laboratory till the patient receives the report.

For this, the diagnostic centre needs to ensure quality right from sample collection to sample processing till the final release of diagnostic tests. This can be ensured by -

 

  1. Well trained and educated staff
  2. Good quality and well-maintained equipment used in lab 
  3. Proper storage of the sample
  4. Proper handling of samples by lab staff

Why it is important to maintain quality?

To maintain quality is of utmost importance as-

  1. Quality helps in improving patient care.
  2. Contributes to consumer safety as wrong diagnostic tests results and incorrect diagnosis leads to failure in providing correct treatment to the patient and unnecessary trouble for the patient, the treating doctors, and the patient’s family.
  3. Helps to improve healthcare spending by avoiding unnecessary repeating of the diagnostic test for clinical correlation.
  4. Helps in the early diagnosis of disease and thus helps the clinicians in starting early treatment
  5. Reduces the risks of trial-and-error treatment and over-prescription.

 

When the quality system is at its right place it helps to find the flaws at the right time in the analysis of diagnostic tests results by the diagnostic labs and thus corrective action can be taken before time to prevent any wrong reporting.