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