The Ministry of Health has proposed building 40 reference high-techlaboratories in the country, in an aim to improve capacity of medicaltesting and ensure quality.

At a conference on medical testingheld last week, Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Xuyen said thelaboratories would be national reference labs for hematology,biochemistry, and clinical microbiology.

The ministry plans to submit its proposal to the Prime Minister.

The country now has 46 medical laboratories with an international standard of ISO 1589, Xuyen said.

Threenational centres for standardising and controlling the quality of labsat hospitals are located in Hanoi and at the HCM City University ofMedicine and Pharmacy.

The number of labs in the city andsouthern provinces receiving external quality assessment from the centrerose to 1,093 last year from 50 in 2007, according to Dr Tran Huu Tam,Head of the Centre for Standardisation and Quality Control in MedicalLaboratories of HCM City.

Through such external qualityassessment, the rate of errors in testing has fallen. For example, therate in hematology errors had fallen to 8.9 percent (2013) from 18.4percent (2008).

"The drop in errors was the result of the centreproviding counselling and training to staff at the labs," Tam said,adding that the centre has standardised curricula for training.

Thecity Department of Health and the centre have compiled a handbook ontesting quality management, which has been delivered to 941 healthfacilities in provinces and cities, he said.

Dr Luong Ngoc Khue,Head of the central government's Department of Medical Examination andTreatment, said the number of tests at hospitals had increasedyear-by-year by 10 percent since 2011.-VNA