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Uniform laboratory standards sought

DUBAI — The UAE’s medical laboratories play a critical role in providing quality healthcare at the hospital, local and national levels, and need to constantly assess and improve their function via an external accreditation process, according to experts speaking at the upcoming Laboratory Management and Medicine Conference in Dubai.

Dr Mansour Al Zarouni, Director of Laboratories at the Al Qassimi Hospital, Sharjah, part of the UAE Ministry of Health said: “There is a need for legislation to introduce uniformity in standards in the various laboratories operating in the UAE. Accreditation affirms the competencies of the laboratory to perform certain processes and tasks consistently. ”

Running alongside Arab Health 2007, the Laboratory Management and Medicine Conference will focus heavily on accreditation and the various forms available to labs in the region. Recent indications suggest accreditation with soon be made mandatory in the Emirates.

Dr Aaron Han, Chief of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the American Hospital in Dubai, the first private lab in the Middle East to receive accreditation from the College of American Pathologists (CAP), said accreditation remains an important means and process for ensuring lab quality.

Dr Han, one of the presenting speakers in the January 29-31 Conference, said laboratories fill a vital knowledge function.

“We think of the lab as providing two kinds of information to physicians and patients. Historically, the first function has been one of accurate diagnosis,” he said.

Without an external reference or benchmark like accreditation from the CAP, Joint Commission International (JCI) or ISO, ensuring lab quality becomes a more objective process, Dr Han said.