QUALITY CONTROL DO'S AND DON'TS IN PATHOLOGY LABORATORIES

Course overview

A comprehensive Quality Assurance and Improvement Plan is essential to achieve and maintain a high level of quality control within pathology laboratories, an essential foundation of laboratory accreditation. The plan should address the three phases of the test cycle, turnaround time, and customer satisfaction evaluations. Additionally the steps involved in attaining the end product of the pathology process - the pathology report - should be evaluated in the plan for accuracy, completeness, and timeliness. All personnel, including pathologists, should be instructed on the institution's definition of quality, the variety of quality monitors used within the department, and how these monitors apply to each area's workflow. As the focus of reducing error-risk in health care settings increases, laboratories must determine a set of quality monitors within each of the three test-cycle phases; preanalytic, analytic, and postanalytic. All monitors should be continually reviewed, well documented, and periodically analyzed to identify trends or increased areas of error risk. Errors in pathology can lead to harmful patient safety consequences. The teleconference will focus on the steps pathology laboratories can take to decrease error risk, develop efficient quality control programs, and educate staff members on their roles in error-risk management.