Quality Control in the Microbiology Lab

Hello everyone,

This week in lecture we discussed quality in the clinical microbiology laboratory. This related directly to laboratory tour our class to of VA Medical Center. Here’s what I learned:

Laboratory quality control is designed to detect, reduce, and correct deficiencies in a laboratory's internal analytical process prior to the release of patient results, in order to improve the quality of the results reported by the laboratory. QC is associated with the internal activities that insure diagnostic accuracy as well as those external activities that ensure positive patient outcome. Positive patient outcomes are:
• Reduced length of stay
• Reduced cost of stay
• Reduced turn-around time for diagnosis of infection
• Change to appropriate antimicrobial therapy
• Customer ( physician or patients )satisfaction
The items list above are the responsibility of all laboratory personnel .

The Standard operating procedures manual (SOPM)  is considered part of QC program. The SOPM defines test performance, tolerance limits, reagent preparation, required quality control ,result reporting and references. The SPOM is available in the work area and is the definitive laboratory reference that is used often for questions relating to individual test .

Continuing education program are also apart of quality control to ensure that sufficient qualified personnel are employed for the volume and complexity of the work performed.

Also apart of quality control, the laboratories are required to participate in an external proficiency testing (PT). The laboratory must maintain an average score of 80%to maintain licensure in any subspecialty area. The laboratory's procedures, reagents, equipment and personnel are all checked in the process. PT provides an insight into the laboratories performance.

And last, the media, is also a part of quality. Sterility checks are performed of all media used in the laboratory. This done by taking a representative sample of the lot and testing it for sterility. 5% of any lot is tested when a batch of 100 or fewer unit is received   and maximum of 10 units are tested in large batches. Sterility is checked by incubating the medium for 48 hours at the temperature at which it will be used.

Of course these are just a few areas of quality control in the microbiology lab. There are many, many more but these are some that not only did we learn about in class but I also heard the microbiology supervisor mentioned that she participated in in her lab.

I have included a link to a video that I thought was interesting called, Meet the Pathologists Behind the CAP's Surveys.  This video is of members of the College of American Pathologists that attended the 2011 AACC Annual Meeting in Atlanta and explained how Board-certified pathologists shape CAP's world-renown Proficiency Testing Program. If you’re interest check it out!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKEJ8mgmqME

Thanks for reading!