Thursday, April 28, 2005
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New Tools and Approaches for Monitoring and Analyzing Internal and External Clinical Laboratory Performance

Ilira Shtepani, Kit Johnson, and Norman Neumann.


Context:
The internal occurrence management and the external proficiency testing schemes are important quality assurance and quality control tools for the validation of analytical measurements and are fundamental as part of an overall quality strategy in specialized laboratories for public health diagnostic testing.

Objective:
Develop new approaches and real-time tools for monitoring and analyzing occurrence management and proficiency testing processes in order to assess the laboratory performance at various organizational levels.

Methods:
The processes of occurrence management and proficiency testing are reviewed along with their importance in planning, evaluation, and improvement of laboratory test programs. In addition to the process description, the interaction and coordination between programs and the quality management system will also be discussed. Based on proficiency testing and occurrence management data, a new approach of processing, analyzing, monitoring and reporting of the laboratory data using an in-house developed software will be presented along with the advantages for quality management and overall efficiency in maintaining and tracking quality indicators, with less cost and turnaround time.


Results:
The software links the processes between all areas, automatically updating the current status of laboratory data with deadline reminders, and facilitates a quicker response to deficiencies with electronic notification for peer review. The software features additional statistical and graphical tools for data analysis and generation of custom made reports.

Conclusions:
Rapid processing of Occurrence Management and Proficiency Testing Surveys through automated reporting and updating facilitates quicker responses to deficiencies or occurences, and is useful for real-time tracking of overall laboratory performance.

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See more of The 2005 Institute for Quality in Laboratory Medicine Conference