In The News
IDI Lab Excels in International Competition
April 29, 2008
The Makerere University–Johns Hopkins University Core laboratory (MU-JHU) emerged 2nd runner up for the prestigious Medical Laboratory Observer’s (MLO) 2008 Medical Laboratory of the Year award . For the first time in history, a laboratory outside the U.S.A emerged as one of the top labs in the MLO award. The annual award acknowledges medical laboratory professionals who play a vital role in health care and celebrates their expertise and efforts.
Located within the Infectious Diseases Institute in the Mulago Hospital complex, the MU-JHU Core Laboratory is a Medical Laboratory that has been in existence since 1989. During this time, the lab has gained a reputation for uncompromising standards of quality and excellent professional laboratory service.
The high quality services of the lab are in high demand and its one of the busiest medical labs in Uganda, processing an average of 16,000 monthly tests and serving over 72 different research studies, hospitals and clinics.
The MLO award considers several aspects of the lab including customer service, contribution to patient care, teamwork, productivity, efficiency, Quality control, quality assurance, innovations, creativity and lab inspection scores. The MU-JHU lab scored exceptionally on all these fronts despite the challenges associated with being in a resource limited setting.
The Core Lab is highly regarded for the outstanding customer service it provides. A number of tools have been created to ensure that clients receive the highest quality service including soliciting for feedback on all service aspects through the customer service concern forms and a biannual customer satisfaction survey. The lab is continually trying to find ways of providing an even better service.
The lab has also registered an immense contribution in research dealing with the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Participation in the HIV Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT - 012) landmark clinical trial resulted in a 50% reduction in mother to child HIV transmission with a single dose Nevirapine and this intervention is now implemented worldwide in resource-limited settings. MU-JHU also validated the current HIV Rapid testing Algorithm used by all government lab facilities in Uganda.
All these achievements have been possible with great team work of an indigenous African staff, investment in good management practice and efficient technologies, high quality control and assurance. MU-JHU has the highest world-class laboratory quality standards available and is one of only three labs in Africa that are accredited by the College of American Pathologists (CAP).
Today, HIV/AIDS patients all over the world are benefiting from outcomes of the long term quality work of the dedicated MU-JHU CoreLab staff.
