A Seminar on Quality and Accreditation in Laboratory Medicine
On March 8th 2018, Quality Assurance Office organized a seminar for Prof. Dr. Rzgar Mageed from Royal London School of Medicine. At the beginning, Prof. Mageed focused on the importance of Laboratory Medicine application in Clinical Medicine as 70% of all the Clinical decisions are based on Lab test results. He shared some up-to-date examples on how Lab tests helped detecting surgically resectable cancers. Prof. Mageed also said: Achieving a 99% level of quality in laboratory test outcomes means accepting a 1% error rate and 1% error in everyday life can be translated as a costly outcome for human beings worldwide.
Furthermore, he stated that Laboratory errors can only be reduced/ eliminated by a proper Quality Management System (QMS). He introduced QMS as a comprehensive program involving coordinated regulation of all aspects of laboratory activities to ensure that the laboratory performs at high quality (CAP, ISO, CLSI, JCI). Besides that, the outcome of QMS ensures that test results are accurate, reliable and on time.
At the end of the seminar, Prof. Mageed focused on College of American Pathologist (CAP) Accreditation. CAP has over 3200 checklist requirements and each laboratory activity is controlled by a checklist. Finally, he wished that most of the Medical Laboratories in Iraq and Kurdistan region will go for International Accreditations.
