Total Lab Care processes more than 150,000 tests/year and we are constantly expanding our menu to meet patients’ needs
TLC provide services to patients, physicians, hospitals, and healthcare facilities throughout Khartoum (the capital of Sudan) through an extensive network of nine (9) Processing labs and more than 20 collection sites. We are expanding to the other states, with over 100 laboratory specialists employed.
What were the key challenges you were experiencing before implementing LiveHealth?
As Total Lab Care expands over a wide geographical area, the biggest challenge will always be monitoring lab operation and immediate collection of data. Before implementing LiveHealth, we had a continuous challenge of observing daily lab routine; unified result reports; exporting management reports; updating test details and prices; and not mentioning equipment interface and customers reports.
We were in continuous risk of losing data as backups are made on local drives.
Challenges Faced
- Before implementing LiveHealth, we had to physically reach every branch frequently to collect statistics of patients and test counts, then, we have to do lots of interpretation to reach to information to make decisions.
- We had to create a database of users and passwords to track login activities and control access to system.
- Also, to upload prices to every contracted organization individually at site (which consumed time and subject to human error).
- Hiring reception staff with medical laboratory background to overcome billing errors related to selection of test.
- Training new staff on the system took very long time.
- Most importantly, before LiveHealth, we were in continuous risk of losing data as backups are made on local drives.
What solutions did LiveHealth provide to address the challenges you experienced?
When we approached LiveHealth as a LIS provider, our main concern was the cost of transferring to a new system in terms of hardware; networking; and time to run the system. This was solved as LiveHealth is a cloud-based system which only needs the same computers we use, with the addition of internet connection. THAT’S IT. LiveHealth provided a user-friendly web-based platform that was easy to work on, for every person with average experience on browsing the internet. LiveHealth provided online training for different system users and offered all the needed support to understand the system.
LiveHealth provided to us so many features that made us spend more time on diagnosis and customer care rather that analysis and interpretation. LiveHealth provided automated statistical information (graphical and numbers) that made us take decisions more quickly. It also offered remote management of different branches from our HQ. LiveHealth provided data security from being lost or corrupted and offered many ways to present and download this data.
LiveHealth provided:
- Equipment interface: which reduced TAT & typing errors
- User Management and login activity: to observe user performance and access control.
- Referral Management to track requests sent by doctors
- SMS feature: to communicate with patients when the reports are ready.
- Mobile App and online view of reports for both patients and doctors
- TAT analysis to evaluate our turnaround time per test and per department.
- Many other time saving features.
In what ways have you benefited by the solution provided to you by LiveHealth?
- LiveHealth reduced our management time by its automated reporting, visual statistics, remote management;
- LiveHealth increased the number of Referral doctors and patient inflow due to the use of SMS and Mobile Apps to view reports;
- LiveHealth reduced the stress of training new staff on the LIS;
- LiveHealth made us make quick decisions regarding operations bottle necks with the help of TAT analysis;
- LiveHealth made us more secured regarding the safety of our data.
We reduced the time we spend on management and increased the time we focus on patients and customers.
LiveHealth’s online reporting and Mobile App has increased the number of referrals and patients coming to our labs.
We are also very amazed with the dedication of LiveHealth staff. There is no problem that could not be solved. We name them “the company that always has YES as an answer”.
It is really a good decision that we made.
-Mr. Mazin Gabora, General Manager
Total LabCare Medical Laboratories, Sudan
