Pathologists Lancet Kenya feted for efforts to curb Covid-19
Pathologists Lancet Kenya has been feted for its efforts in supporting Kenya healthcare recovery efforts during the Covid – 19 pandemic period. Pathologists Lancet Kenya emerged second runners-up during the 2023 Quality Healthcare Awards in the category of Excellence in response to Covid 19 which is a recognition of the laboratory’s outstanding preparedness and response in addressing the Covid pandemic to ensure behaviour change, safety of health workers and patients across the country.
Commenting on this achievement, Pathologists Lancet Kenya Managing Director Mwende Musunga noted that the Covid-19 pandemic period provided health organizations like Pathologists Lancet Kenya with an opportunity to scale its service delivery channels to support the fight against the spread of the pandemic.
“We are delighted by the recognition as it gives us a reason to continue doing good in society. During the pandemic period, Pathologists Lancet Kenya emerged as a key contact point in administering mass testing of potentially infectious specimens. The result was the introduction of a well-coordinated process that involved healthcare personnel in various units of our laboratory - including pre-analytical, analytical, and data and quality assurance checks,” Mwende said.
During this period, Pathologists Lancet Kenya used testing methods comprising of highly specialised molecular PCR testing to detect the viral RNA in patient’s nasopharyngeal swabs, and immunoassay testing to detect viral antigens in patient’s nasopharyngeal swabs samples. Committed to providing diagnostic excellence, Pathologists Lancet Kenya was the first laboratory in Kenya and the Region to receive the ISO 15189 accreditation for SARS-COV-2 PCR testing.
Quality Healthcare Awards Africa seeks to showcase the impact of the positive contributions of Kenyan healthcare providers by recognising outstanding performance, promoting a culture of continuous quality improvement, advocating for strong partnerships between health providers and users, fostering innovation and the use of information technology, sharing of best practices, uniting the public and private sectors towards a common goal and creating a platform for collaboration.