Rwanda’s national reference laboratory gets five star rating

The country’s national reference Laboratory can now make reliable medical tests internationally thus allowing local patients to receive effective treatment, thanks to the recent five star accreditation.

The accreditation that saw the laboratory move from three- star to five- star is awarded by East Africa Public Health Laboratory Network (EAPHLN) which aims at improving the quality of laboratory systems in the East African region.

“This rating proves that our laboratories have the ability to offer better services to our patients, to provide specialized diagnostic services and conduct drug resistance monitoring at international level,” said Dr. Agnes Binagwaho, Minister of health

The national  reference  laboratory was recognised  for  its higher quality of diagnosis, efficiency in records management and state-of-the-art equipment, something  that    gave  the country  health  sector a  new  look.

Recently, the   government embarked on improving health systems mainly in improving   laboratory services as well as ensuring that   there is quality and accuracy in   medical examinations through training and equipping laboratory personnel.

Accordingly, the Laboratory has achieved a score of 98.7 per cent above the standard gauge of 95% or higher for a laboratory to achieve the five star rating.

“This also means that some exams that need the intervention of other laboratories can be realized locally with reliability,” remarked Dr. Jean Baptiste Mazerati, Deputy Director General of Biomedical Services

Experts say that the rating   increases the performance and efficiency of the public laboratories, thus   providing accurate laboratory results that help in prevention or cure of diseases and minimise errors.

With the ranking, public health laboratories are ranked upon quality, efficiency and accessibility standards in order to gauge their ability to diagnose and survey TB and other communicable diseases, he added

Again, through the Step-wise approach, the accreditation provides laboratories with an accurate assessment of current performance; facilitating monitoring and evaluation in order to demonstrate areas of improvement and to reward progress.