Princess Marina Medical Lab Gets Accreditation
Baboki Kayawe | Monday August 31, 2015 16:11
The certification as explained by the hospital management, is meant to ensure quality and reliability of diagnosis. The standard issued by the Southern African Development Community Accreditation Service (SADCAS) is called ISO 15189:2012.
The scope of the accreditation is largely related to diagnosis and monitory of diseases of the blood and blood forming organs namely- haematology, blood bank, and serology (study of serum and other bodily fluids) as well as chemistry and microbiology.
At the certification handing over in the capital on Friday, PMH superintendent Dr Kelebogile Motumise assured the public that the occasion sent a message to their customers that the hospital is “doing everything possible to give you the best service.”
Motumise added that in their pursuit of quality in all aspects of patient management, the hospital was implementing the Council for Health Service Accreditation of Southern Africa hospital standards to ensure “the patients get the best possible quality service the hospital can afford.”
“The laboratory is a blessing to the institution as the hospital can now benchmark with it and to learn from the experiences and ensure that the challenges faced by the laboratory are handled better and in more efficient manner to enable full implementation of the COHSASA standard and attain accreditation for the hospital as a whole,” he said.
Chief executive officer of SADCAS, Maureen Mutasa said the certificate that was issued end of June was valid for five years. She added that PMH is the 11th medical laboratory to be accredited by the regional multi-economy accreditation body.
The ISO 15189:2012 is reported to be a global initiative that aims to create a standard measure of quality in medical laboratories. It has developed initiatives to promote competence and responsibility in medical laboratory processes, equipment and outcomes.
The standard, which was developed by the International Standards Organisations Technical Committee, has been implemented in over 200 countries.
The process involved testing of the effectiveness of laboratory equipments and the impact those particular equipment have on the processes in the labs and their outcomes.