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Improving the accuracy of malaria-related laboratory tests in Ghana

BACKGROUND: Inaccurate malaria results can lead to patient mismanagement, misperceptions about malaria resistance patterns and public health misinformation. All laboratories need to be able to demonstrate that their results are accurate. Establishing and maintaining a system for monitoring test accu...

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Autores principales: Bates, Imelda, Bekoe, Veronica, Asamoa-Adu, Alex
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2004
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC529273/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15516269
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1475-2875-3-38
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author Bates, Imelda
Bekoe, Veronica
Asamoa-Adu, Alex
author_facet Bates, Imelda
Bekoe, Veronica
Asamoa-Adu, Alex
author_sort Bates, Imelda
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Inaccurate malaria results can lead to patient mismanagement, misperceptions about malaria resistance patterns and public health misinformation. All laboratories need to be able to demonstrate that their results are accurate. Establishing and maintaining a system for monitoring test accuracy is a complex, expensive and technically demanding process, which very few poor countries have been able to implement. This study described the process and assessed the feasibility of establishing a nation-wide system for improving the accuracy of malaria-related tests in peripheral laboratories in Ghana. PROGRAMME IMPLEMENTATION: A baseline survey of all 693 laboratory staff in 205 sub-regional government and mission health laboratories in Ghana was conducted by a national network of laboratory supervisors. Survey results guided a training programme to improve test accuracy. Outcomes included changes in the quality of laboratory tests and the system was considered to be feasible if >50% of laboratory staff in each region received training and if test accuracy could be documented. PROGRAMME INDICATORS: 74% (mean) of the 693 laboratory staff were assistants with no professional qualifications. There were marked differences between regions in the availability of essential resources for malaria diagnosis (e.g. microscopes). 93% of laboratory staff received training; in six months there were increases of 11% and 7% respectively in the number of laboratories producing haemoglobin and malaria microscopy results of acceptable quality. CONCLUSIONS: It is possible to establish a system for improving and monitoring test accuracy in peripheral laboratories on a country-wide basis in a developing country using a model that could be adapted for use in other countries and for other components of health care provision.
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spelling pubmed-5292732004-11-19 Improving the accuracy of malaria-related laboratory tests in Ghana Bates, Imelda Bekoe, Veronica Asamoa-Adu, Alex Malar J Research BACKGROUND: Inaccurate malaria results can lead to patient mismanagement, misperceptions about malaria resistance patterns and public health misinformation. All laboratories need to be able to demonstrate that their results are accurate. Establishing and maintaining a system for monitoring test accuracy is a complex, expensive and technically demanding process, which very few poor countries have been able to implement. This study described the process and assessed the feasibility of establishing a nation-wide system for improving the accuracy of malaria-related tests in peripheral laboratories in Ghana. PROGRAMME IMPLEMENTATION: A baseline survey of all 693 laboratory staff in 205 sub-regional government and mission health laboratories in Ghana was conducted by a national network of laboratory supervisors. Survey results guided a training programme to improve test accuracy. Outcomes included changes in the quality of laboratory tests and the system was considered to be feasible if >50% of laboratory staff in each region received training and if test accuracy could be documented. PROGRAMME INDICATORS: 74% (mean) of the 693 laboratory staff were assistants with no professional qualifications. There were marked differences between regions in the availability of essential resources for malaria diagnosis (e.g. microscopes). 93% of laboratory staff received training; in six months there were increases of 11% and 7% respectively in the number of laboratories producing haemoglobin and malaria microscopy results of acceptable quality. CONCLUSIONS: It is possible to establish a system for improving and monitoring test accuracy in peripheral laboratories on a country-wide basis in a developing country using a model that could be adapted for use in other countries and for other components of health care provision. BioMed Central 2004-11-01 /pmc/articles/PMC529273/ /pubmed/15516269 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1475-2875-3-38 Text en Copyright © 2004 Bates et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research
Bates, Imelda
Bekoe, Veronica
Asamoa-Adu, Alex
Improving the accuracy of malaria-related laboratory tests in Ghana
title Improving the accuracy of malaria-related laboratory tests in Ghana
title_full Improving the accuracy of malaria-related laboratory tests in Ghana
title_fullStr Improving the accuracy of malaria-related laboratory tests in Ghana
title_full_unstemmed Improving the accuracy of malaria-related laboratory tests in Ghana
title_short Improving the accuracy of malaria-related laboratory tests in Ghana
title_sort improving the accuracy of malaria-related laboratory tests in ghana
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC529273/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15516269
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1475-2875-3-38
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