The lab strives for best patient care through efficient, effective and robust quality systems as the building block to a successful business is a happy and satisfied customer Prabhat Prakash
Dr Dangs Lab is revered as the go to lab for all diagnostics needs for patients as well as hospitals in the Delhi NCR region. The lab started operations in 1983 by founding members Prof (Dr) Navin Dang and Dr Manju Dang. The journey began with a small financial investment and a 400 sq ft area and today the facility stands at 30,000 sq ft specialised laboratory that doyens in the healthcare field swear by. Currently, the lab is run by the Dang family. The core members being Prof (Dr) Navin Dang, Dr Manju Dang, Dr Manavi Dang and Dr Arjun Dang.
So whats the secret behind their success? Dr Navin proudly says, “Our focus on quality over quantity.”
Being a NABL accredited lab, it follows the highest degrees of quality as well as services. The lab strives to provide best patient care and offers a large array of tests as per the needs of patients and hospitals alike. The lab tirelessly provides accurate test results, with shorter turnaround time to help patients as well as empower physicians to take informed decisions on clinical aspects, and directing them to provide effective treatment.
Services offered
The lab offers a wide menu of tests in biochemistry, haematology including flowcytometry, microbiology, molecular biology, immunology, histopathology, and cytology. Along with its wide array of tests, the lab’s molecular laboratory routinely performs a wide array of infectious disease testing on the Roche thermo cycler, Cobas taqman, Genxprt, and Hybribio. At Dr Dangs Lab, extensive leukaemia and MRD related testing is performed on the BD FACS flow cytometer in the department of specialised haematology. In an endeavour to make MRD assay feasible and available to children suffering from Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL ), Dr Dangs Lab along with Cankids offers the MRD assay to clinicians across the country. As a part of this project, the lab has performed close to 1000 MRD cases over the past one and half years. In view of the overwhelming response from the clinicians, the lab hopes to make the assay available for every patient suffering from ALL and thus facilitate treatment of international standards.
The lab plays an integral role in all lab processes including phlebotomy and other pre and post-analytical processes. It is a paediatric sensitised lab with special paediatric phlebotomists and pathologists trained in paediatric sample reporting along with the best doctors with specialist pathologists for MRD and haemato-onco pathology.
Preservation of integrity of samples from external centres and home collections is maintained by the lab’s elite home collection services, where samples are exclusively transported post centrifugation and bar-coding in air conditioned cars with provisions of monitoring and maintaining the cold chain with temperature data loggers.
In the words of Dr Navin Dang, “Today, Dr Dangs Lab is the only lab in India that has a mix of unparalleled report quality, personalised attention to patients, ethical work ideals and the highest repute in the doctor community.”
Automation enhancing productivity and quality
Automation is a crucial part of a diagnostics lab in today’s day and age as it reduces Turn-around Time (TAT), is precise and accurate, and eliminates the chances of human errors. Dr Dang’s lab too has opted for automation to ensure better efficiency in operations and higher quality outcomes. From sample life cycle to collection to dispatch of reports everything is automated in the lab. There are robust checks incorporated in the automated workflow to ensure the highest diagnostic accuracy and reliability of services that are provided. Some of the automation tools include the use of pneumatic chutes for timely transfer of biological specimens to the lab for analysis, FDA approved/CE marked automated platforms and use of a robust Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) to effectively manage samples and associated data. The lab has high throughput, integrated and modular clinical chemistry, and immunochemistry analysers that are inter-phased to LIMS for direct electronic transcription of test results, eliminating even the slightest chance of errors due to manual intervention. Samples are bi-directionally bar-coded through LIMS, which a major component of automation, which enables the bar-coded information on the collection tubes to be accurately read by analysers. The barcodes which are generated at the time of registration or sample collection itself where in tests are punched along with demographic details. The lab puts in a lot of effort to improve patient care through accuracy and consistency in laboratory analyses.
Dr Arjun Dang is of the opinion that the future will be strongly backed by automation and digital technologies that will enable pathology into becoming more efficient and more scalable field in medical sciences.
Quality control and quality assurance
The lab takes great pride in providing the highest degrees of service and quality results. The laboratory is known for consistent quality driven operations through the systematic implementation of effective quality management systems (QMS) that assures clients (patients pan India and hospitals like HAHC Hospital, SGT medical college & Hospital, SITARAM Bhartiya Hospital, Aashlok Hospital etc.) of accurate, reliable and timely reporting of test results. The lab strives for best patient care through efficient, effective and robust quality systems.
The laboratory subjects itself to continuous and rigorous voluntary accreditation compliant to global ISO 15189 standards applicable to clinical laboratories through demonstrated competence to achieve quality goals. A dedicated QAU (Quality Assurance Unit) is setup to help design, implement and continually improve on the laboratory’s performance and services.
Dr Arjun Dang states, “We understand that discrepant laboratory results may pose considerable risk to patients and hence, make all possible structured efforts including multiple internal and external laboratory quality control and quality assurance (qc/qa) measures, participation in proficiency testing (pt).
Proficiency testing determines the performance of individual laboratories for specific tests or measurements and is used to monitor laboratories continuing performance. Proficiency testing involves a group of laboratories or analysts performing the same analysis on the same samples and comparing results. The key requirements of such comparisons are that the samples are homogeneous and stable and also that the set of samples analysed are appropriate to test and display similarities and differences in results. The lab is committed to performing proficiency testing on a regular basis to ensure the best quality of our services.
The lab also ensures that a triple quality check, involving the sample being seen by a MD pathologist, quality manger and one from the lab as well.
“We have managed to maintain our above par quality standards by always having a significant number of doctors (MD pathology) in our manpower count as well as employing a unique Triple Quality Check which ensures a no error patient report,” mentions Dr Arjun Dang.
“Maintaining and surpassing quality is an ongoing process and we at Dr Dangs Lab are never satisfied with the status quo .We continuously strive towards increasing our test menu, ensuring that our equipment is at any time the best in class as per global standards, hiring newer talent and holding rigorous trainings as well as improving on the customer interface experience, whilst never deviating from our core goal of providing the most accurate test results” adds Dr Arjun Dang.
Biomedical waste management
According to Dr Dang, their lab is one of the first labs across India to adhere Biomedical waste Management Guidelines 2016 completely, in terms of barcoding of waste at the point of generation that allows live tracking of waste generated daily, through automated system.
Measuring success
The success of this lab is mainly measured in terms of the goodwill it has earned in so many years. Although the lab chain has been performing well in the northern states, Dr Dang and his team is overwhelmed with the trust his laboratories have earned. Dr Arjun Dang states, ”Our motto has always being, ‘Creating Value not Volumes’.
This has led to an unparalleled ethos with the Dr Dangs family at the helm of affairs who strongly believe that every sample is a patient and deserves the best attention and care. A satisfied patient is what has been and will be the cornerstone of measuring success for this lab.
prabhat.prakash@expressindia.com