Electronic laboratory information management system (eLIMS)

An Electronic Laboratory Information Management System, the intervention under investigation in this study, is a health information management system that facilitates automatic and electronic test ordering and reporting, diagnostic quality indicator tracking, clinician-lab communications. In the absence of such a system, health laboratories must use paper formats for test ordering, reporting, sample identification, result verification and tabulation which are time-and-effort-consuming and prone to transcription error.

An Electronic Laboratory Information Management System, the intervention under investigation in this study, is a health information management system that facilitates automatic and electronic test ordering and reporting, diagnostic quality indicator tracking, clinician-lab communications, results validation and verification, inventory and equipment management, sample quality pre-screening, and more.

This is particularly relevant in Vihiga County, Kenya where the hospitals under study serve a high volume of patients, which has some of the highest rates of Malaria and HIV incidence in Kenya (KDHS 2020). Additionally, the facilities under study serve the most economically vulnerable populations of Vihiga and perform the majority of Malaria testing for the county health system (HIS Report 2021).

The East Africa Childrights Trust Network (EACR) is currently implementing programmes targeting young girls and women of reproductive age who are HIV positive on sexual and reproductive health services with a view to building their capacity economically and on life-skills. We are thus been exposed to challenges faced by target population sho goes to health facilities seeking health care services. they take long hours in ques awaiting diagnosis and laboratory testing that lasts long periods , sometimes days (Such as laboratory culturing). Through engagement with the community we developed this concept to help address long waiting time for treatment by the communities seeking health services.

About 1500 patients per month

Many laboratories in these cases struggle with incomplete test ordering forms, slow patient registration processes, poor information-sharing between hospital departments, and inefficient application of human resources and time (Asmelash et al., 2020; Kouroubali et al., 2019; Olayemi & Asiama-Broni, 2011). Additionally, of all laboratory errors, clinical errors in the test-ordering and test-interpretation phases outside of the laboratory have been found to have lower rates of monitoring and higher rates of error than the in-lab analytical processes (Asmelash et al., 2020; Hawkins, 2012). For these reasons, “Digital Maturity” is being viewed as the health system development intervention that will bring improved financial stability, health outcomes, work life for health workers, and public health outcomes (Bodenheimer & Sinsky, 2014; Duncan et al., 2022).