A few months ago, Vimla K (name changed), a 47-year-old from Mumbai, was told that she had breast cancer and had to undergo 2 months of painful radiation treatment.
However, she was later informed that she did not have cancer, as the hospital lab had mistakenly switched her specimens with those of another patient.
Vimla’s case might be an extreme instance of a lab error, but errors nevertheless are widely prevalent in the pathlab industry and can wreck havoc in a patient’s life.
At a time when pathology labs are becoming attractive baits for investors, issues like errors and poor accreditation continue to dog the sector.
Corporate pathlab chains such as Dr Lal’s PathLabs, Metropolis, Piramal Diagnostics and SRL are growing both through acquisitions and by setting up new labs.
According to Ameera Patel, executive director, Metropolis, the organised sector is witnessing a growth of 20-25% per year.
Sanjeev Chaudhry, CEO, SRL, said geographies such as Middle East, North America and Europe look attractive for buying labs.
But issues such as wrong labelling of samples, incorrect storage of samples, technical errors, wrong instructions to patients, wrong reports to wrong patients, and wrong interpretations of test results, etc are quite prevalent in the over $1.8 billion pathlab industry, which includes both mom & pop labs and organised set-ups.
According to Bhuwanesh Agrawal, chairman & managing director, Roche Diagnostics, errors are bound to happen as no human is infallible and systems have to be designed to prevent or absorb them.
Avinash Phadke, director & chief (pathology services), Piramal Diagnostics, said the average rate of error is 0.1% in a good lab and about 1% in an average lab, of which 60-70% pertains to human errors and about 10-15% are technical errors.
Another issue with labs is them not being run by a MD (master of medicine), said Nimrat Bawa, director, Auroprobe Labs, New Delhi. “In India, less than 10-15% labs are run by a MD. There are cases where MDs go from one lab to another just to sign papers and are not there to see how systems are working. This can increase chances of errors.”
Industry experts say accreditation of labs by authorities like National Accreditation Board for Labs (NABL) can help mitigate errors.
Of the over 100,000 labs in India, less than 200 are accredited.
NABL accreditation allows labs to follow international set practices for running labs, and bring in quality, good equipment, and personnel, said Sanjay Arora, managing director, Suburban Diagnostics, a chain of 7 labs.
“Our target is to get all labs accredited,” said Chaudhry of SRL. “Currently 12 of our 60 labs are accredited.” Moreover, it also means more business. O P Manchanda, CEO, Dr Lal’s PathLabs, said, the central government health scheme , which is a big client for many labs, deals with only accredited labs.
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