Laboratory Quality Management

Achieving, maintaining and improving accuracy, timeliness and reliability are major challenges for health laboratories. Countries worldwide committed themselves to build national capacities for the detection of, and response to, public health events of international concern when they decided to engage in the International Health Regulations implementation process. Only sound management of quality in health laboratories will enable countries to produce test results that the international community will trust in cases of international emergency. This handbook was developed through collaboration between the WHO Lyon Office for National Epidemic Preparedness and Response, the United States of America Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Division of Laboratory Systems, and the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI). It is based on training sessions and modules provided by the CDC and WHO in more than 25 countries, and on guidelines for implementation of ISO 15189 in diagnostic laboratories, developed by CLSI. This handbook is intended to provide a comprehensive reference on Laboratory Quality Management System for all stakeholders in health laboratory processes, from management, to administration, to bench-work laboratorians. This handbook covers topics that are essential for quality management of a public health or clinical laboratory. They are based on both ISO 15189 and CLSI GP26-A3 documents. Each topic is discussed in a separate chapter. The chapters follow the framework developed by CLSI and are organized as the "12 Quality System Essentials".

Discusses quality control practices in health care laboratories. Will help laboratory directors, managers, supervisors and technologists towards a more quantitative understanding of the performance capabilities of different quality control procedures.

The book presents a qualitative and quantitative approach to understand, manage and enforce the integration of statistical concepts into quality control and quality assurance methods. Utilizing a sound theoretical and practical foundation and illustrating procedural techniques through scientific examples, this book bridges the gap between statistical quality control, quality assurance and quality management. Detailed procedures have been omitted because of the variety of equipment and commercial kits used in today's clinical laboratories. Instrument manuals and kit package inserts are the most reliable reference for detailed instructions on current analytical procedures.

This book will enable the production of reliable, accurate, reproducible (best possible care) results that satisfies the customer's requirements obtained from an accredited, process oriented, health and safety conscious laboratory that is cost effectively run (value for money) by qualified, certified and highly motivated biomedical staff (Joy and pride at work) using well maintained, validated and quality controlled equipments and appropriately stored reagents on the right sample drawn from the right patient that is appropriately communicated in a timely fashion to the requesting clinician to enable them render the best possible evidenced- based medical care to their patients.

In order to gain accreditation, every laboratory must have a superior quality assurance program. The keys to a successful program are the operational and technical manuals and associated documents which define the program and its various components. Written by experts with global experience in setting up laboratories, Implementing Quality in Laboratory Policies and Processes: Using Templates, Project Management, and Six Sigma provides templates for the various policies, procedures, and forms that should be contained in the quality assurance, operational, and technical manuals of a laboratory seeking accreditation. Templates for the entire project life cycle The book begins with a general introduction and overview of quality assurance and then moves on to cover implementation strategies. It contains best practices and templates for the project management of the design and implementation of the laboratory operational and technical manuals required to establish a quality assurance program. The templates span the entire project life cycle, from initiation, to planning, to execution, to monitoring, and finally, to closure. The book also examines how Six Sigma concepts can be used to optimize laboratories, and contains templates that cover administrative issues, quality assurance, sample control, and health and safety issues. In addition, there is a section of criteria files that relate the individual document templates to specific accreditation criterion. Addresses the standards of ISO 17025 The results of any laboratory examination have the potential to be presented in court and can ultimately affect the life and liberty of the parties involved. Therefore, a stringent quality assurance program, including well-documented policies and a procedure manual, is essential. Ensuring that laboratories meet the standards of ISO 17025, this volume is a critical component of any laboratory’s accreditation process.

Every clinical laboratory devotes considerable resources to Quality Control. Recently, the advent of concepts such as Analytical Goals, Biological Variation, Six Sigma and Risk Management has generated a renewed interest in the way to perform QC. However, laboratory QC practices remain highly non-standardized and a lot of QC questions are left unanswered. The objective of this book is to propose a roadmap for the application of an integrated QC protocol that ensures the safety of patient results in the everyday lab routine.

Updated edition of this bestselling book, now extended to include quality and risk management in the ART clinic.

A key issue for every laboratory and individual practitioner is the assessment of risk and current working knowledge of the standards of care established for diagnostic testing via guidelines, major studies and trials. the diagonstic Standards of Care series presents an overview of the key diagnoses in clinical pathology using case examples to illustrate effective analysis of the case in light of current evidence and standards for the problem discussed. In addition to being practical diagnostic guides, these volumes will have a unique emphasis on quality assurance and evidence-based testing pr