Clinical Lab Improves Kenya Healthcare Services

The new medical laboratory for the community. Evanson is discussing clinical services with Sarah, one of HopeCore's nurses

HopeCore's new lab facility!

BACKGROUND

Primary healthcare (PHC) is the first-line contact for medical care, service, and advice. In Kenya, PHC is provided by community health workers, and at dispensaries, health centers, and outpatient departments of hospitals. The World Health Organization (WHO) advocates for basic laboratory services to support clinical and public health activities at PHC level and the government of Kenya has planned for appropriate diagnostic services at all levels of the health care system (Levels 1–6); currently, peripheral laboratories are established mainly down to health center level (Level 3). Most health centers are situated in rural areas, where the majority of the population lives; however, considerable constraints remain in establishing rural laboratory units and supporting their operation.

As an organization (VILLAGEHOPECORE INTERNATIONAL) in our public health department, our approach is to educate, prevent, diagnose, and treat various diseases. The organization has now launched a fully operational, well-equipped laboratory with modern automated machines, offering a full range of laboratory tests and services, a fully registered medical laboratory facility for the community with the help of our kind donors MERIEUX FOUNDATION whereby we will be aiding in medical diagnosis by performing various tests to gather health information as it relates to a patient’s diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease.

Meet Evanson Lein, HopeCore's new laboratory technician!

Clinical laboratories provide information and services that contribute to maximizing the effective delivery of care in today's complex healthcare system by assuring that the correct test is performed on the right person, at the right time, producing accurate test results that enable providers to make the right diagnostic and therapeutic decisions using the right level of health care resources. Laboratory information enables physicians and other healthcare professionals to make appropriate evidence-based diagnostic or therapeutic decisions for their patients. Clinical laboratory services are the most cost-effective, least invasive source of objective information used in clinical decision-making. Clinical laboratory services have a direct impact on many aspects of patient care including, but not limited to, length of stay, patient safety, resource utilization, and customer satisfaction.

Evanson demonstrates his lab station to HopeCore's medical director, Dr. Rasori, at one of the mobile Sunday clinics

At VILLAGE HOPECORE LABORATORY services offered includes

• ANTENATAL PROFILE TESTS FREE OF CHARGE

• CHILDREN UNDER THE AGE OF 5 YEARS FREE OF CHARGE

• ADULTS AT SUBSIDIZED CHARGES

RATIONALE

Impacting diagnosis, identifying abnormalities:

We are aiming at producing accurate, sensitive, and specific information using new-age technologies to guide clinical decision-making. It is the role of laboratory professionals to inform physicians about which tests have the highest effectiveness in given clinical conditions. Through this partnership, the overall cost of testing and patient care is controlled, and the quality of care is improved. Laboratory information has a profound impact on patient diagnosis. Tests, whether classified as screening or diagnostic, are essential elements of protocols used to diagnose and manage specific diseases and conditions. Algorithmic testing models, designed with clinicians, are used to guide the diagnostic process to obtain the right information at the right time for a given patient, shorten the time to diagnose, and the length of stay, and improve the utilization of laboratory services. These models assist in the rapid identification of disease, assessment of the severity of disease, creation of a therapeutic plan, and management/monitoring of treatment outcomes. The more efficient the testing protocol, the shorter the length of outpatient encounters, the faster the implementation of therapy, and the lower the overall cost of care.

Evanson is checking a sample at one of the mobile labs he set up during a Sunday mobile clinic

Change in patient management:

The ability of a physician or other patient care provider to consistently make timely and evidence-based decisions that result in a change in care management is directly related to the availability of accurate, reliable, and timely laboratory testing and reporting of results. A few examples that illustrate the laboratory professional's ability to be the primary enabler of therapeutic efficacy are:

• Monitor the effectiveness of parenteral nutritional treatment

• Ensure proper dosing of medication

• Monitor the harmful effects of therapeutic drugs

• Identify the causes of infection

• Determine effective antibiotic therapy

• Provide real-time decision support

Clinical laboratory services provide the information required by a physician to start, adjust, and also to stop a course of treatment. This allows for the most appropriate, cost-effective use of expensive drugs and other therapies, and allows the patient to be treated at the most appropriate level of care for the most appropriate period. Without laboratory information, these decisions would be compromised at best.

Kenya Laboratory Services: Inside HopeCore's new laboratory

Patient Safety and Impacting Patient Outcome:

Clinical laboratory services are a vital component of ensuring optimal outcomes for all patients accessing health care, whether for simple situations or complicated, potentially life-threatening situations; including end-of-life care. Laboratory professionals impact patient safety by providing pre-procedural testing that determines the current ability of the patient to undergo those treatments. Patient outcomes are influenced by providing the needed information for clinicians to monitor the effectiveness of ongoing treatments and therapies. Patient outcomes can also be measured by how well chronic illnesses are managed. Diabetics rely on laboratory support to monitor the long-term effectiveness of their home monitoring systems. Results from the Laboratory provide vital information to assist clinicians in making decisions that affect the quality of life for their patients. 

CONCLUSION

While technology continues to improve the productivity of today's laboratories, new technologies, new diseases, and disease strains continue to drive the need for more tests and testing. Changes in the world and the speed with which diseases spread globally drive the need for rapid diagnosis. Thus, the clinical laboratory is an indispensable partner in providing patient care, and making direct improvements in the lives of patients, in the maintenance of the public's health, and in the effectiveness of individual health care providers. In this emerging value-based world, diagnostics continue to have an important role to play in delivering critical information that can enable more effective care delivery and improve patients’ lives. 

Evanson working to organize materials in the HopeCore Lab

To MERIEUX FOUNDATION, thank you for your thoughtful donation to the setup of our new modern laboratory facility. Your donation will make sure that critical medical diagnostic information is available to enable more effective care delivery and improvement of patients’ health.