Work shop on Laboratory quality system and gap analysis Take place

The Ethiopian Health and Nutrition Research Institute (EHNRI) which has the mandate to strengthen the national laboratory system and build the laboratory system of Regional Health Bureaus conducts a workshop on laboratory quality system and gap analysis from March 15-20, 2010 at the institute’s hall.

Opening the workshop, Ato Gonfa Ayana, an Officer in the Department of Regional Laboratory Capacity Building Directorate said that “The training program has a unique feature in that participants are drawn from the laboratories which are selected for the accreditation.

Ato Gonfa further said a similar program on the same theme was conducted only ones and the current workshop covers specific areas such as concept of laboratory quality management system, practical implementation and its impact in the Ethiopian context.

EHNRI has been exerting utmost effort to emulate the experiences of other countries with respect to the operation of laboratory services with a view to succeed each level of the WHO-AFRO accreditation scheme and laboratory quality standards which were put in place by WHO to be met by developing courtiers like Ethiopia.

Ato Gonfa said the training program would help to assess the gap of the current laboratory service status and quality of the laboratory service providers in Ethiopia. ’’That would help us to address existing problems through the effective utilization of resources so that efficient and reliable public health laboratory services are rendered to the people of Ethiopia’’ Ato Gonfa Added.

The training program is aimed to help participants to be able to explain the importance of a quality management system, list the quality system essential elements, describe the history of development of quality principles and discuss relationship of this quality model to ISO and CLSI standards.