The entire lab of the Department of Medical Microbiology at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) secured NABl accreditation, making it the countries first biggest public sector lab to be granted this certification.
“Improving diagnostic and patient care services has been a continuous endeavour of PGI. Accreditation of the laboratories is an important step in this direction,” said Dr YK Chawla, Director PGI.
He further added that the Virology and the Biochemistry labs are in the pipeline to get accredited, so that world class services could be imparted by this premier institute.
Small laboratories like the HIV diagnostic laboratory was accredited earlier, this is the first big achievement of the Institute that the entire "Department of Medical Microbiology", of the Institute has been accorded accreditation by the National Accreditation Board for Calibration and Testing laboratories (NABl).
“The department has many major sections like Bacteriology, Mycology, Tuberculosis, and Serology and caters to the diagnostic needs of a 2,000 bed tertiary care hospital and an OPD of 9,000 patients daily. The department of Medical Microbiology receives 1,200 samples every day for microbiological diagnosis of infectious diseases. All the reports generated by the department will now be accepted internationally,” said Dr A Chakrabarti, Head of Department Medical Microbiology.
NABl is an autonomous body that assesses the quality, technical competence and calibration standard of laboratories. NABl evaluates the all-round functioning of the laboratories, including competency and training of authorised signatories and technical staff, functional status and calibration of all instruments and documentation of all activities.
The accreditation process ensures a fool-proof system to generate highest quality output, traceability of the cause for any minor deviation from the system and immediate corrective measures for the same.
Accreditation will make the reports generated by the department acceptable by 76 accreditation bodies in 64 economies throughout the world. This will eliminate the need for re-testing when a patient moves for treatment to other hospital in India or abroad.