The Managing Director of Pinecrest HealthCare Limited, Dr Chijioke Onyia, has called for a comprehensive overhaul of quality assurance systems in Nigerian medical laboratories, warning that inaccurate and unreliable diagnostic results could endanger patients’ lives.
Onyia made the call while briefing journalists on the company’s inaugural Quality Assurance Summit, themed: “From Bench to Benchmark: Raising Laboratory Quality Standards for Patient Care.” The summit is being organised by Pinecrest HealthCare Limited in partnership with global diagnostics firm, Bio-Rad.
According to him, quality in laboratory medicine must go beyond producing technically acceptable results to embracing continuous measurement and systematic improvement across the entire analytical pathway — from test requests, sample collection and transportation to analysis, result validation, reporting and clinical interpretation.
He said: “The laboratory bench is where testing takes place. But quality cannot end with simply obtaining a result.
“Our aim is that government at all levels and all stakeholders in medical laboratory practice should declare a state of emergency in the area of quality assurance in medical laboratory practice in Nigeria.”
Onyia urged governments at the national and sub-national levels to provide adequate resources to enable medical laboratories implement robust and globally acceptable quality assurance protocols.
He also called on relevant regulatory bodies to ensure strict compliance with minimum quality assurance standards by medical laboratories across the country.
“The relevant regulatory bodies should ensure that medical laboratories comply with the required minimum standard of quality assurance in their practice. All stakeholders should come together and collectively advocate for strict implementation of quality assurance in every aspect of medical laboratory practice,” he said.
The Pinecrest boss stressed that improving laboratory quality should be regarded as a collective responsibility involving government, regulators, laboratory medicine professionals and healthcare institutions.
“We at Pinecrest HealthCare believe that raising laboratory quality is a collective responsibility. Government, regulators, laboratory medicine professionals and healthcare institutions — all hands on deck.
“Our long-term aspiration is to push medical laboratory practice in Nigeria to the point where quality becomes a culture and not just a checklist,” he said.
Onyia explained that the theme, “From Bench to Benchmark,” represented a call for laboratories to move beyond merely performing tests to developing systems in which quality is continuously measured, monitored, improved and demonstrated.
“The ultimate objective is not simply to produce technically acceptable laboratory results. The ultimate objective is better patient care,” he said.
Speaking on the importance of quality in laboratory medicine, Onyia said laboratory investigations remained central to modern healthcare, as test results influence clinical diagnosis, treatment decisions, disease monitoring and assessment of patient outcomes.
He warned that inaccurate or unreliable results could have serious consequences for patients.
“Quality must therefore be considered throughout the entire analytical pathway, from the moment a test is requested and the patient is prepared, through sample collection and transportation, to analysis, result validation, reporting and clinical interpretation,” he said.
Onyia said laboratory data informed more than 70 per cent of clinical decisions, stressing that compromised results could mislead clinicians, result in wrong prescriptions, delay appropriate intervention and contribute to preventable deaths.
He further cautioned against treating quality control merely as a checklist for regulatory compliance, saying such an approach could undermine patient safety.
According to him, “people, processes and technology remain the core drivers of laboratory excellence.”
The summit is expected to bring together medical experts, healthcare stakeholders and regulators to examine systemic gaps in laboratory practice and strengthen total quality management systems in Nigeria.
