1. QUALITY ASSURANCE A process to ensure quality patient care

2. 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

3. ELEMENTS OF A QA PROGRAM Organization of a QA program Testing personnel Process control before,during and after testing Documents and records Trouble shooting

4. 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

5. PERSONNEL Sincerity and commitment Literacy Organizational skills Decision-making skills Communication skills CLIA requirements

6. 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