How a Spanish microbiologist helped make public hospital laboratories better prepared today than they were before the pandemic during COVID-19

by Polytechnic University of Valencia

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Researchers from INGENIO, a joint center of the Institute for Advanced Study (CSIC) and the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV), together with two co-authors from the University of Sussex (UK), recently published the following findings: A study on the organization and subsequent impact of testing networks for conducting novel coronavirus (COVID-19) PCR tests during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in Spain and the United Kingdom.The paper will be published in a magazine innovation.

This study shows how the standards of medical professionals in Spain (in this case clinical microbiologists in public hospitals) had more influence on the organization of laboratories than in the UK. In the latter countries, efficiency standards were imposed and experts had less influence over decisions about testing activities. This situation led to the creation of new centralized mega-laboratories, the so-called “lighthouse laboratories”, which were criticized for their high costs and poor quality of testing.

“The results of these decisions were very different in the two countries: in Spain, the influence of microbiologists meant that public hospital laboratories are better prepared today than they were before the pandemic, while in the UK the “Large central laboratories are being dismantled and do not seem to be helping to build national capacity,” says David Barbera, a researcher at INGENIO and one of the study authors.

The study is based on an analysis of multiple documents and 44 interviews with experts from both countries, ranging from laboratory directors to health policy makers and public health experts.

“Our analysis focuses on the discourses and practices used in both countries, which we conceptualize as ‘boundary work’, i.e. having PCR technology but set up by national logics. “It is a discourse and practice aimed at excluding from systems laboratories that do not meet the standards set by the medical profession (in Spain), and the logic of efficiency (in the UK),” says the researcher at INGENIO and the author of the study. Enrique Meseguer, co-author of , explains:

This study therefore shows that whereas in the UK the testing volume of clinical laboratories set up with public funds was limited in favor of the Lighthouse Laboratory, in Spain universities and laboratories were effectively excluded. It highlights things.

The study is part of the Optimizing Coronavirus Testing System (OCTS) research project led by the University of Sussex. The project studied the organization of testing systems in eight countries (UK, Spain, Germany, South Korea, South Africa, Ireland, Australia and Canada) during the COVID-19 crisis. A multidisciplinary team of experts in medical innovation, health emergencies, and epidemiology will meet weekly from June 2020 to May 2022 to review various aspects of pandemic testing systems in the countries studied. Discussed.

Investigations are underway into issues such as the relationship between the capacity of testing systems and excess deaths in all countries surveyed, and the organization of testing for international travel. This comparative study, focusing on Spain and the UK, is the first paper published as a result of the research project.

For more information:
David Barberá-Tomás et al., Who can “test, test, test”? Boundary work and institutional interactions in COVID-19 diagnostic testing organizations; innovation (2023). DOI: 10.1080/14479338.2023.2254740

Provided by Polytechnic University of Valencia

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