A Narrative Review of the Laboratory Information System and Its Role in Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance in South Africa

摘要

A laboratory information system (LIS) established in a microbiology department has the potential to play an important role in the quality of microbiology data such as culture of blood, urine, stool, pus swab samples etc. Such data could be effectively utilised to measure the burden of antimicrobial resistance among patients presented to various hospitals and clinics with an episode of an infectious illness of bacterial origin. A variety of clinical and epidemiological investigations are conducted using culture data and the presence of an electronic system such as LIS enhances such investigations and improves the reliability of measures of antimicrobial resistance owing to improved data quality as well as completeness of data gathered as opposed to paper based system. Therefore to improve surveillance of antimicrobial resistance in South Africa, there is a need to reinforce the functionality of the LIS in both public and private microbiology laboratories as this will help to improve internal quality control methodologies.