External quality assurance laboratory set up to ensure quality of tests at govt facilities

To ensure the quality of tests conducted at government laboratories across Tamil Nadu, an external quality assurance laboratory has been established at the State Public Health Laboratory (SPHL), Directorate of Public Health (DPH) and Preventive Medicine.

Set up at a cost of ₹1.13 crore, the laboratory will ensure the quality of tests conducted in 2,177 Primary Health Centres (PHC), 300 government hospitals and 36 medical college hospitals across the State without any cost to the participating government labs.

Pilot launch

As a pilot project, the DPH-EQAS (External Quality Assurance Scheme) programme is being rolled out at 116 PHC laboratories in Tiruvallur and Chengalpattu districts.

According to an official release, laboratory services are essential for the diagnosis of diseases, surveillance and to initiate preventive and control measures. Currently, the Integrated Essential Laboratory Services (IELS) being implemented has further strengthened the scope and services in the State. Under IELS, samples are being referred from spoke labs to hub labs for various investigations. So, patients need not travel unnecessarily, and it reduces the out of pocket expenditure as well. So far, laboratories under DPH and other health institutions were sending samples for external quality checks to Christian Medical College, Vellore for an annual expenditure of ₹52 crore. Based on the participation of EQAS programme and other parameters, 1,622 PHC labs in Tamil Nadu are NABL certified under MELT programme. From now on, the SPHL can conduct the quality checks.Such EQAS laboratories are not available in other government or their allied institutions. Hence, it was decided to establish the DPH-EQAS lab at SPHL.

The National Health Mission, Tamil Nadu sanctioned ₹90 lakh for the procurement of laboratory equipment.Health Minister Ma. Subramanian inaugurated the DPH-EQAS lab and launched the pilot programme in the two districts. He also launched a mobile app developed for the project to upload laboratory results.

After the successful implementation of the pilot project in Tiruvallur and Chengalpattu districts, ISO 17043 will be obtained from NABL and from January 2026 onwards, all government laboratories in T.N. will be participating in the DPH-EQAS Program, the release said.