QUALITY ASSURANCE

A process to ensure quality patient care

DEFINITION

• Quality assurance: planned and organized activities to help ensure that certain requirements for quality will be met

• Quality control: operational techniques or tasks that are in place to find and correct problems that may occur

ELEMENTS OF A QA PROGRAM

• Organization of a QA program• Testing personnel• Process control before ,during and

after testing• Documents and records• Trouble shooting

TRAINING ELEMENTS

• Read the instructions for test performance

• Observe test performance

• Practice using controls

• Practice finger-stick procedure

• Review the in-house procedure, forms and documentation procedures

PERSONNEL

• Sincerity and commitment

• Literacy

• Organizational skills

• Decision-making skills

• Communication skills

• CLIA requirements

COMPETENCY ASSESSMENT

• Retuned demonstration of test procedure is required prior to patient testing

• An additional evaluation should be done a six months and annually thereafter

• Proficiency samples