Lanka Hospitals Diagnostics celebrates one year of medical laboratory testing excellence

Sri Lanka’s first medical reference laboratory service, Lanka Hospitals Diagnostics is celebrating a year of healing at its best by combining a range of tests with the latest equipment and highest professional standards available in the country.   

Timely, accurate and cost-effective diagnosis is crucial in obtaining the right treatment at the earliest possible opportunity. Understanding this critical component in medicine, Lanka Hospitals Diagnostics has upgraded their laboratory to provide international standard services that are not available elsewhere in Sri Lanka.

Lanka Hospitals Diagnostics is the country’s first medical reference laboratory, the broadest laboratory test menu, full-time laboratory consultants heading each department, and state-of-the-art testing facility, with the most advanced instruments and equipment. The lab adheres to strict quality controls, SOPs and protocols as well as testing conducted under the latest testing platforms.

Lanka Hospitals Diagnostics (LHD) consists of eight departments that are overlooked by six full-time laboratory consultant doctors. The departments consist of Microbiology, Immunology and Serology, Biochemistry, Histopathology, Haematology, Molecular Biology, Cytogenetics and Flowcytometry.

At LHD all instruments and equipment are validated daily, abiding by strict SOPs and protocols, providing the most accurate results and each and every result is previewed by a consultant doctor. The facility offers more than 1,000 tests, the largest test menu performed by any lab in Sri Lanka. LHD is proud to have added around 250 new tests in to its portfolio in the first year of its operations out of which more than 80 tests are only performed at LHD.

LHD also looks forward to adding unique testing technologies such as new born screening, HLA typing and FISH technology on to its test menu in the near future. Liquid Based Cytology, Immunofluorescence markers, Real Time PCR, Immunocap Phadiatop, Vitek II, Automated Coaugulation, Flow Cytometry and Nephelometry are new technologies added by the facility in the last 12 months.

Currently, LHD has over 500 sample collection centres and samples are safely and securely transported to the Reference Laboratory in Colombo for analysis, which is the largest in Sri Lanka.

Once samples reach LHD, highly trained staff carefully categorises and bar code each of the samples, allocating them a worksheet detailing all the tests that need to be done. These are then distributed to the relevant departments under stringent quality assurance systems, often checked multiple times to ensure no mistakes are made. On average the laboratory collects a few thousand samples a day.

The lab is also the first hospital lab to be granted the ISO 15189 laboratory recognition by the Sri Lanka standards institute and is in the process of gaining accreditation from the College of American Pathologists (CAP) by undergoing a strenuous testing process. 

The College of American Pathologists (CAP) accreditation is considered the gold standard in medical laboratories world-wide. CAP adheres to strict international guidelines, SOPs and protocols that are followed by all medical laboratories that have been awarded the CAP accreditation.

LHD begun the CAP accreditation process in early January 2015, and aims to be a CAP accredited medical laboratory by early 2016, which will make LHD the first medical laboratory achieve this gold standard. LHD is currently undergoing the CAP proficiency testing and LHD has achieved results above the required levels of CAP.

The achievement of these stringent quality requirements has been made easy for LHD because of the expertise of staff, quality processes and availability of state of the art instruments.

Being a CAP accredited medical laboratory, LHD will have a close relationship with other medical laboratories around the world, thereby learning and understanding the latest discoveries and processes that are introduced from day to day in the medical industry. LHD will have the ability to understand the constant changes in medicine and technology to further improve its services in helping the Sri Lankan medical fraternity to improve treatment.

Collecting test results have also been thoughtfully made easy. Each patient will be sent an SMS when their samples are being tested along with a user ID and password. Once the testing is completed, they will receive another update to their chosen mobile number and the results can be downloaded at home by logging onto www.lhd.lk. Only Lanka Hospitals Diagnostics provides this service in Sri Lanka, ending the days of waiting in line and needless delays.

“LHD is dedicated to becoming the number one medical laboratory in Sri Lanka. We currently provide over 1000 test types and deliver results consistently and accurately. This is an effort that transcends our company to encompass our goal of providing quality healthcare to everyone through individualised service and care,” said Lanka Hospitals Chief Operating Officer Aruna Jayakody.

A range of testing methods has also been improved by LHD leading to significantly higher levels of accuracy and comfort to patients who previously had to undergo painful or invasive sample procurement methods. Professionals engaged in drug research use the internationally accepted services of LHD as a reference laboratory to reinforce their studies globally. 

LHD is invested in providing the very best in advanced technology and professional superiority for all health care needs as LHD operates within a quality system that enhances their ability to meet and exceed the requirements of accreditation and facilitate service satisfaction for all.