2 CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.6 AN EFFECTIVE TB LABORATORY SERVICE INVOLVES
2.6.7 Turnaround Time
The various health care personnel define turnaround time differently. Some laboratory personnel define turnaround time as the duration of time from specimen receipt in the laboratory to the time the AFB result is released by the laboratory. The South African National TB Control Programme defines turnaround time as the 'duration of time from the taking of a specimen from the patient to the receiving of the result at the health facility'. [23] In South Africa the target for turnaround time is less than 48 hours. For a health facility to be considered as having a turnaround time of within 48 hours, at least 80% of all specimen results must be received by the health facility within 48 hours of the sputum having been collected. 15.
For the third quarter of 2007, the turnaround time for all nine provinces (proportion of facilities within a province with turnaround time within 48 hours) ranged from 19% to
National Department of Health, personal communication (July, 2008).
75%. None of the provinces achieved the target of 80%. Very few facilities reported a turnaround time of less than 48 hours.
Achieving the targeted turnaround time remains a major challenge. Calculating
turnaround times poses a challenge in view of the poor and incomplete reporting of TB data to the National Office16. Transportation of specimens from health care facilities to laboratories and delivery of AFB results from the laboratory to the health care facility forms another major challenge especially in remote areas of the country.
Access to laboratory services poses a challenge in remote areas of the country, which lack basic infrastructure such as landline telecommunications, Eskom power supply and adequate roads. The most affected provinces are Eastern Cape, Limpopo, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal. The turnaround time in these provinces varies from between 2 to 14 days. [27] This is unacceptable for a service that is the cornerstone of the TB control programme. Bacterial coverage has improved in most provinces, which is an indication that most patients were diagnosed using smear microscopy.
The laboratory is often blamed for the prolonged turnaround time. The laboratory argues that the problem (causing prolonged turnaround time) was not the laboratory per se, but in transporting specimens to the laboratory and subsequently forwarding the results back to the clinics. The National Health Laboratory Service has tried a number of ways to
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improve the afferent loop in the Eastern Cape. These include courier services, taxis, ambulances, motorcycles and helicopters. [36].
To improve turnaround times and the speed of communicating TB microscopy results, a 2-year pilot study was carried out in the Port St Johns region of the Eastern Cape from 2001, using a cellphone SMS (Short Message Service: cell phone technology) reporting system. [36] The study showed that when a reliable motorcycle-based transportation
National office here refers to the National Department of Health, TB Control Unit.
Pre-analytical phase of the laboratory logistic loop, viz. specimen transport in remote areas.
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system was provided (for transportation of biological specimens from remote areas to the laboratory), application of the SMS reporting technology was associated with an
appreciable increase in the proportion of patients successfully treated for TB according to the directly observed treatment-short course (DOTS) strategy. The National Health Laboratory Service has thus achieved great success with using a motorbike and a local driver to transport specimens to the laboratory. In forwarding the results back to the clinics, the most successful method they have used was sending the laboratory results to the clinic sister via cellphone SMS.
A very innovative project called e-Juba (electronic pigeon) is underway to address the afferent loop. [36] This is a joint operation between the National Health Laboratory Service and Denel Dynamics (unmanned aerial vehicle division) and is based on the principle of the carrier pigeon. Experiments are being conducted to explore the feasibility of using mini-unmanned aerial vehicles designed to transport a payload (biological specimens) of up to 500g over a distance of up to 40 km via multiple Global Positioning System (GPS) to a specified target (testing laboratory).
Efforts to improve the efferent loop18 also poses challenges as many remote areas of the country in addition to not having suitable roads also lacks access to Telkom landline services and Eskom electric power supply. These areas however are well supplied with wireless communications provided by one or more of the 3 Global System of Mobile (GSM) network service providers19. Using these networks enables communication of laboratory results from the testing laboratory to the clinic via the short message service (SMS) and general packet radio service (GPRS) systems. More sophisticated data communication is also possible using interactive SMS, GPRS or Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS), or 3G.[36] Innovative methods of sending laboratory results from testing laboratories to the clinics were pioneered by the South African Institute of Medical Research and National Health Laboratory Service in 2000.
Post-analytical communication of laboratory results.
19 MTN, Vodacom and Cell-C
The latest equipment released was a custom-designed SMS printer capable of printing a hardcopy report from a wireless GSM signal at any remote clinic in South Africa or in much of the African continent.
In KwaZulu-Natal, the eThekwini Municipality acquired three TB laboratory park- homes, which will function as decentralised TB laboratories. The park-homes were situated at three strategic locations (clinics) within the municipality and are expected to reduce turnaround times, which are as high as one week in some areas in the
municipality.