Biomedical Laboratory Practices and Challenges in Digitalization: A Review

Abstract

Biomedical laboratory plays an important role in the healthcare system by providing services for medical screening, diagnosis, and treatment selection, which is the backbone of a healthcare system. The growing demand for complex testing has placed biomedical laboratories under heavy pressure, leading to an increase in collaboration and bridging the service gaps among laboratories. During the COVID-19 pandemic, laboratories around the globe struggled to perform a large number of COVID-19 laboratory tests every day, as the country combats through the outbreak. This review provides an overview of biomedical laboratory settings and assurance, and discusses current biomedical laboratory practices and their level of digitalisation in Malaysia and a few other countries, such as the United States, Europe, Saudi Arabia, and Africa, during the outbreak. Despite the variety of laboratory practices in different countries, digitalisation remains important in supporting the healthcare system during the COVID-19 pandemic. This review also highlighted the challenges of current practices, which should be addressed to further enhance the accessibility and reliability of biomedical laboratory services. The suggestion of collaboration within the healthcare system has also been discussed to improve laboratory services for handling outbreak situations.