Clinical Referral Laboratory Personnel’s Perception of Challenges and Strategies for Sustaining the Laboratory Quality Management System: A Qualitative Study in Rwanda

OBJECTIVES: To explore challenges explaining the decrease in quality performance and suggest strategies to improve and sustain laboratory quality services. METHODS: Twenty key informants’ interviews from laboratory personnel were conducted in five laboratories. Four had previously shown a decrease in quality performance. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using inductive thematic analysis. RESULTS: Two themes emerged: (1) insufficient coordination and follow-up system towards accreditation, where lack of coordination, follow-up, and audits explained the decrease in performance; (2) inadequate resource optimization, where insufficient knowledge in Laboratory Quality Management System (LQMS), ownership by laboratory workforce, and insufficient stakeholders’ communication contributed to low-quality performance. CONCLUSIONS: The coordination, follow-up, and assessments of LQMS, in conjunction with training of laboratory workforce, would establish an institutional culture of continuous quality improvement (CQI) towards accreditation and sustainment of quality health care. To achieve CQI culture, routine gap checking and planning for improvement using a system approach is required.