The combined theoretical and practical laboratory training sessions scored good results in the pre and post tests. PharmAccess and Hygeia organized the training last October for the laboratory staff of the clinics that are or will be healthcare providers of the Hygiea Community Health Plan (HCHP). Hygeia is the local partner of the Health Insurance Fund in Nigeria. The training consisted of a theoretical session in the morning, followed by a practical one in the afternoon. Separate trainings were given in Lagos and in Illorin.

Customized training
In Lagos 23 participants from 13 health care providers and in Illorin 13 participants from 8 health care providers from the Kwara region took part in the training. The laboratory training was customized to the specific needs of the Health Insurance Fund program, based upon the monitoring and evaluation results of the visits in January and September of this year to the different providers in the program.
 
The training started with a theoretical session. Several laboratory topics were addressed with a main focus on the quality related aspects of those topics. Subjects addressed were, amongst others, the “quality systems and processes”, “quality assurance and quality control, internally and externally” and “critical values, sensitivity and reliability”. The sessions were given by Mr. Olumide Makinde, lab manager of Lagoon Apapa Hospital in Lagos and Nicole Spieker and John Dekker, two lab specialists from the PharmAccess office in Amsterdam.

                
                     Participants had to put theory into practice

Practice session
During the afternoon session the information presented in the morning sessions was put into practice by randomly selected teams of four to six participants. The teams had to perform a test on a chemistry analyzer brought in from The Netherlands, using several specimens provided by the Lagoon Apapa Hospital. Further, a glucose or haemoglobin assay had to be performed on 5 specimens (in duplicate); these results were processed and written down. Last, the participants had to formulate a standard operating procedure (SOP) on the overall processing of critical results.

The practical session proved to be very successful. After a slow start each team began processing the results and started discussing specific issues and related actions. At the end each team presented the SOP in front off the complete training group.

In these team presentations all the different quality aspects that were mentioned during the morning session were addressed. Together with the good results of the pre and post questionnaire, it can be concluded that the combination of a theoretical and a practical training is very fruitful method.