Patients who undergo biological tests at the Regional Hospital of Peja, thanks to the digitalization of services, no longer need to appear in person to collect their results. These results are sent via email or other platforms that patients use.
This convenience is also functional within the hospital wards, enabling a more efficient circulation of medical information.
The Biochemistry, Microbiology, and Clinical Pathology Laboratory at the Peja Hospital offers a wide range of tests, including general blood tests, PSA, D-dimer, thyroid gland tests (T3, T4, TSH), and diabetes trimester measurements (HbA1c).
This laboratory performs up to 1 million services per year, with a minimal error rate.
The head of this laboratory, Adem Çeku, emphasizes that services are provided both for hospitalized patients and for outpatients.
“We perform over 1 million tests a year. We provide services for patients who are hospitalized in the hospital, as well as for outpatients, patients who are not hospitalized. Within 24 hours, the number of patients exceeds 350. We have functional equipment, the same equipment as the Clinical Biochemistry Institute in Pristina,” he says.
At the Peja Hospital, hospitalized patients do not have to wait for test results; they are completed within the same day.
For outpatients, tests are scheduled based on a list of appointments, which can extend up to 6 days, depending on the flow of requests.
“The department is renovated and clean, we don’t have any issues regarding infrastructure in the laboratory… For patients who come from the emergency department and for hospitalized patients, there is absolutely no waiting for service; it is completed on the same day the request is made. For outpatients, appointments range from 5 to 6 days, but not longer,” he emphasizes.
The head of the Biochemistry, Microbiology, and Clinical Pathology Laboratory at the Regional Hospital of Peja, Adem Çeku, highlights that the digitalization of laboratory tests has positively affected work efficiency and has improved the accuracy of results.
According to him, this development has significantly enhanced the quality of services and reduced the chances of technical errors.
“For the first time on the level of Kosovo, the digitalization of laboratory tests has been implemented, which helps us, but at the same time, it is much more accurate in issuing results through the computerized method… Analytical errors, which we analyze, have a minimal chance of being made for any parameter… We have a range of equipment that allows us to repeat any suspicious result on 5-6 other machines using the same blood sample,” says the head of the biochemistry laboratory.
Besfort Gashi, the IT manager at the Peja Hospital, explains how citizens can now receive their test results without even going to the laboratory.
He informs that this service is free of charge, and thanks to digitalization, patients not only save money but also time.
“Recently, we launched the digitalization of the biochemistry laboratory at our hospital, which has been made possible at no cost. All the services we’ve implemented, such as the digitalization of X-rays and nursing, are without cost… This system allows data to be stored in the patient’s file within the hospital, where the digitalization also includes the laboratory results sheet. Every report given to the patient contains a QR code, and after scanning this code, the analysis result opens automatically, like the one shown here. With this, it is possible for the result to be sent to the patient via email or other platforms, always respecting their personal data. And by doing so, we save the patient time, as they only come once in the morning to provide the sample… Afterward, they do not need to return, and we serve four municipalities,” says Gashi.
At the General Hospital of Peja, the digitalization of X-rays was also completed some time ago.