Medical laboratory experts have said diagnostic errors, from missed diagnoses to misdiagnoses, are all too common in healthcare and they are getting more attention as a prominent healthcare concern.
They say that the provision of quality diagnostic test reports in the least Turn Around Time (TAT) will enable doctors improve patient’s treatment and safety, noting that about 40-50 percent of samples are sent outside of Nigeria for testing which increases the TATs and leads to delay in treatment for Nigerians.
“These samples that leave Nigeria to be tested in countries like India, South Africa, United Kingdom, America and Europe is one of the problems currently affects the healthcare diagnostic space and this causes delay of test results, thereby limiting the doctor’s ability to treat patients,” said Sanjay Mathur , the managing director, VCare Diagnostics.
According to Mathur some of the results which are needed for diagnosis of a patients gets delayed because the turn around time of results, which comes from any of these countries take about seven, 10 and sometimes 30 days for some of the tests report to come out.
“Having diagnostic facilities in Nigeria, which performs about 95 percent of the tests will fill the gap in the diagnostic space and enhance early treatment of diseases, as well as increase the country’s ability to become a reference laboratory point for Africa.”
“The diagnostic facilities, in collaboration with India biggest laboratory, Techmed will ensure the equipment required for the diagnostic testing are available in Nigeria to test about 600 samples per hour,” he said.
However, the case for reducing diagnostic error intensifies when healthcare organizations realize how common it is. But, despite the prevalence of diagnostic error in the industry, VCare model is to fill key gaps that currently persist in the healthcare diagnostics space.
Adiatu Olatunde, the chief executive officer (CEO) VCare Diagnostics said the organisation is going to become like a research and reference lab for the entire healthcare industry, so that our customers are not only direct customers, but also other laboratories, hospital, research institutions, Non-Governmental Organisations – they all will be sending samples to us and we do the tests for them.
“Lack of quality assurance has led to inaccurate diagnosis, which has questioned the reliability of laboratory results in Nigeria,” said Abiola Adejumobi Quality Assurance manager adding that one of the ways to address the problem is by having internal quality control materials of known standards, as well as external quality assurance programme and ensuring efficiency in both the technical and human capacity.
ANTHONIA OBOKOH
