GLOBAL HEALTH
Zambia’s National LIS Advances Laboratory
Efficiency, Data Availability
by Clement Phiri, laboratory technical advisor, Global Health; Kasimona Sichela, dashboard developer/data manager, Global Health; Elias Munshya, LIS
support officer, Global Health; Reshma Kakkar, manager, Global Health Informatics; Rachelle Jones, senior specialist, Global Health Informatics;
Sadaf Chaudhry, manager, Global Health
With support from APHL, Zambia
officially launched its national laboratory
information system (LIS) in 2014 after
a year of implementation at the largest
hospital in the country, University
Teaching Hospital. Designed to exchange
data among public sector laboratories
nationwide, the LIS was inaugurated by
the Minister of Health.
Since 2014, Zambia has rolled out LIS to
13 more facilities, ranging from sections
that conduct HIV viral load testing only (9
facilities) to full scale LIS implementation
covering Hematology, Biochemistry,
Immunology, Serology and Bacteriology
sections (4 facilities). These laboratories
have welcomed the benefits of the LIS,
including reduction in turnaround time
for HIV test results from weeks to days,
improvements in specimen tracking,
and secure results/records storage and
retrieval. In addition, an electronic
test orders and results transmission
application that enables remote test
request entry, specimen tracking and final
result transmission has been installed at
several health facilities. This application
has contributed to enhanced barcoded
sample tracking and rapid return of
results to care providers.
All 13 laboratories are pursuing
accreditation as part of the Stepwise
Laboratory Improvement Process
Towards Accreditation (SLIPTA) program.
Three applied for the Southern Africa
Development Committee Accreditation
Scheme (SADCAS) accreditation audit in
2018, and all were accredited to the ISO
15189 Standard by SADCAS.
PublicHealthLabs
@APHL
Dr. Hamankwa Mantina, deputy head of Pathology and Microbiology disusses the LIS setup with (from l to r) Charles Nyambe,
deputy director, Laboratory Services, CDC Country Director Dr. Lawrence Marum, the Hon. Minister of Health Dr. Joseph
Kasonde and Dr. Victor Mudenda, head, Pathology and Microbiology. Photo: Zambia Daily Mail
To improve knowledge and decision
making at the Ministry of Health (MOH),
APHL assisted with development of
an MOH centralized laboratory data
repository that captures data from all LIS
nationwide on an almost real-time basis.
This open source repository, termed Open
Laboratory Data Repository (OpenLDR),
allows the MOH to conduct analyses,
generate reports and integrate data from
other healthcare systems, for example,
electronic medical records (EMRs).
Monthly reports include information on
LIS performance and statistics for HIV
viral load and EID testing for information
on progress and trends. The OpenLDR
also helps to identify gaps in the data
APHL.org
management cascade such as the need
for a unique national patient identifier
to enable longitudinal monitoring of
HIV viral load tests for patients on anti-
retroviral testing.
APHL Zambia seeks to be innovative
especially with use of laboratory data.
In 2018, the team began developing data
visualization tools and dashboards using
data from the central repository. The
team is also exploring data integration
possibilities with other health systems to
enable seamless linkage between clinics
and laboratories. n
Winter 2019 LAB MATTERS
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