Pinecrest Healthcare has advocated for the implementation of stronger quality assurance systems across medical laboratory practices to enhance diagnostic accuracy, patient safety, and overall healthcare outcomes.
The call was made by Dr. Chijoke Onyia, Managing Director of Pinecrest Healthcare, during a media address ahead of the upcoming inaugural Quality Assurance Summit, themed “From Bench to Benchmark: Raising Laboratory Quality Standards for Patient Care.”
Speaking on the importance of standardisation, Dr. Onyia stressed that quality in laboratory medicine must extend beyond merely obtaining technically acceptable results. He emphasised the necessity of continuous measurement, monitoring, and ongoing improvement of laboratory processes.
”Laboratory results play a central role in modern healthcare, directly influencing clinical diagnosis, treatment decisions, disease monitoring, and patient outcome assessments,” Dr. Onyia noted. He warned that inaccurate or unreliable test results can lead to severe consequences for patients.
Dr. Onyia identified people, processes, and technology as the fundamental drivers of laboratory excellence, urging healthcare institutions to embed quality as an core operational culture rather than treating it as a basic regulatory compliance checklist.
He highlighted that quality assurance spans every stage of the analytical pathway—beginning the moment a test is requested by a clinician, through patient preparation, sample collection, transportation, analysis, result validation, reporting, and final clinical interpretation. The upcoming summit aims to evaluate how healthcare institutions can strengthen each of these critical components to establish sustainable quality management systems.
The inaugural event will convene medical laboratory scientists, pathologists, and key healthcare stakeholders to examine existing gaps in laboratory quality assurance and establish practical solutions for raising standards. Organisers reaffirmed that the primary objective of the summit is to ensure quality laboratory services directly result in more accurate diagnoses, safer treatment protocols, and improved health outcomes for patients.
