Comparison of Current Status of Public and Private Laboratory / Эрүүл мэндийн лаборатори

ABSTRACT

Background@#The past decade has seen an increasing involvement of private for-profit medical laboratories in the national healthcare provision. But the majority of patients still use services of public hospital laboratories. @*Goal@#The goal of the survey was to assess the status of private and public medical laboratories based on ISO 15189 requirements.@*Method@#The overall capacity of seven private and seven public laboratories was assessed using a questionnaire based on ten main requirements of ISO 15189.@*Results@#In general, the public laboratories scored better that the private laboratories but the difference was not significant (79 points for public laboratories vs. 72 points for private laboratories; p=0.115). The main differences were in the areas of equipment management (82 points for private vs. 92 points for public; p=0.025) and testing performances (77 points for private vs. 91 points for public; p=0.006). Out of the remaining eight assessment sections, the private laboratories scored better, but not significantly, in the areas of laboratory management and laboratory information system.