Medical Laboratories Quality Management and Challenges in Ethiopia: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Background

Although based on a single system, each laboratory should have their own quality management system, in Ethiopia, quality management systems in medical laboratories were introduced in 2009 with the aim of improving the quality of services.

Objective

This review was designed to evaluate the status of quality management practice and challenges among medical laboratories in Ethiopia.

Methods

A systematic qualitative review of the literature was made by searching the international electronic bibliographic database of PubMed (NML), web of science (TS), google scholar, African journals online (AJOL) and Cochrane Library.

Results

Thirty-six full-text articles, which were published between 2010 and 2022, were included in this review. In this review, 33 of 36 (91.7%) studies showed that status of quality management practice in Ethiopian medical laboratories was limited. As a result, the quality of medical laboratories was inadequate. The main challenges were problems associated with laboratory professionals (35/36=97.2%), inadequate support from management bodies (21/36=58.3%), limited on-job training access (8 /36=22.2%) and high workload (5/36=13.8%).

Conclusion

The status of quality management practice among medical laboratories in Ethiopia is limited. The main quality compromising factors were problems associated with laboratory professionals, inadequate support from management bodies, high workload, and limited on-job training access. Therefore, all responsible stakeholders should focus on ensuring Quality Management Systems and the system should be applied in all Medical laboratories. Only this will ensure the improvement of quality within medical laboratories across Ethiopia.

Keywords:

• quality
• medical laboratory
• quality management system
• implementation
• challenges

Disclosure

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.