quality assurance

• hospital laboratory”- serves hospital inpatients
• outpatient laboratory”- serves only out patients
• The Joint Commission

  -sets standards of care to ensure quality and reliability of healthcare.
• Clinical Laboratory Standards Institute

  • Establishes laboratory guidelines and procedures
  • Maintains uniformity of laboratory procedures on a national basis.
• Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act of 1988 (CLIA)

  -protect patients from receiving inaccurate results.
• Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)

  • enforces safety standards for employees
• pre analytical phase is mostly the responsibility of phlebotomist.
• most common error is clerical error.
• Quality Assurance was created to guarantee that all areas of healthcare are providing the highest quality and most appropriate patient care.
• Total Quality Management (TQM)— ensures that the quality can be met.

  • Establishes the assurance of adequate supplies and personnel
  • Up to date procedures
• Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI)- constant efforts to improve what is being done.
• failure costs” cost to recover continues to increase but can be considered as an opportunity for improvement.
• highest failure cost when the failure causes harm to the patient
• Six Sigma

  -identify and improves processes using data and customer requirements to reduce errors.
• Lean

  -develop work-flow programs to streamline laboratory operations.

  • reduce the number of steps that phlebotomists in performing their job.
• EP23-A is a new guideline from the CLSI that introduces risk management principles to the clinical laboratory.
• Tort refers to acts or omission causes damage to another,
• Malpractice insurance is another name for professional liability insurance