THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Dissent is brewing among healthcare workers and private lab operators in the state as the recently introduced Lab Diagnosis Management System for reporting Covid-19 test results by healthcare institutions and laboratories has been giving them a hard time. According to them, the new system is complicated and time consuming and a majority of negative results are not getting updated on a daily basis because of this.
According to the Kerala Government Medical Officers Association (KGMOA) and Private Lab Owners Association, Covid-19 test results are not being updated daily because of the new system. They also cited this as the one reason for the increased test positivity rate (TPR) in the state. A senior official of the health department said the new system was introduced overnight. “This was the third time the government was introducing a new reporting system for Covid-19.
The healthcare staff at PHCs have to do the data entry, swab collection and management of the patients. When the department introduced the previous system, the employees were given proper training, but it never happened this time. The new system is more complicated as we have to make 21 entries to finish the test report of a single individual. These come to five pages. In rural areas, we have been facing connectivity issues. Hence, many PHCs are giving priority to only positive results, so fewer negative test results are getting updated online,” said an official.
It is impossible to update the results of the entire tests being done in the state in a day. “The number of tests happening is way more and the results of an average of 20,000 tests are not getting registered in the new system because of the complicated process,” said the official. Besides, many private laboratories in the state have stopped updating the data, he added.
State president of KGMOA Dr Joseph Chacko said the matter has been communicated to the state government. “This is the time to increase the number of tests to monitor the Covid-19 situation. By introducing this new reporting system, the government has made the process more complicated. Since the introduction of this system, the testing numbers have fallen drastically.
We will be giving a representation to the government soon, urging it to resolve the crisis and increase the number of tests,” said Dr Chacko. “The state needs to do a minimum of one lakh to 1.5 lakh tests per day which is not happening right now. Only by increasing the tests, the government will be able to isolate the patients and judge the real Covid-19 situation in the state,” he added. The KGMOA has also demanded more data entry operators for making the system more smooth.
Around 40 private laboratories in the state are doing antigen and RT-PCR tests for diagnosing Covid-19 in the state. State executive member of the Medical Laboratory Owners Association Dr Ramesh Kumar said their employees are burdened because of the new system. “There are flaws in the new system. Connectivity issues are also one factor and the server becomes slow because of usage at the same time from multiple logins. We think there is no need for entering negative test results in the system, which takes time. Because of the pandemic situation, we don’t have enough employees for managing the workload,” said Dr Ramesh Kumar, who is also the Kerala head of Metropolis Lab.