OBJECTIVES Evaluate data available from a national voluntary reporting system and describe the data processing necessary to enable the development and application of outbreak detection methods in healthcare settings. METHODS Evaluation was performed on an extract of data reported between March 2007 and May 2012. Reporting delays were calculated and analysed at the trust, regional and national...

A hospital laboratory relational database, developed over eight years, has demonstrated significant cost savings and a substantial financial return on investment (ROI). In addition, the database has been used to measurably improve laboratory operations and the quality of patient care.

Indonesia has been part of the global influenza surveillance since the establishment of a National Influenza Center (NIC) at the National Institute of Health Research and Development (NIHRD) by the Indonesian Ministry of Health in 1975. When the outbreak of avian influenza A (H5N1) occurred, the NIC and US Naval Medical Research Unit 2 were the only diagnostic laboratories equipped for etiology...

The value of laboratory medicine is closely related to the impact of its laboratory services on patient outcome. The perception of patients and medical doctors regarding medical laboratory services is that diagnostic laboratories deliver accurate test results, which guarantee an unequivocal and similar risk classification, diagnosis, treatment and patient outcome across hospitals. External qual...

INTRODUCTION One of the most striking developments in twentieth-century medicine has been the growing involvement of laboratory science in day-to-day medical practice. Not only are scientific laboratories employed extensively in the diagnosis and investigation of illness, but it is now commonplace to regard doctors as, in many ways, applied scientists. This is a far cry from the situation at th...