QUALITY ASSURANCE IN THE CLINICAL LABORATORY  San Lazaro Hospital STD AIDS Cooperative Center

Laboratory (SACCL)
QUALITY MANAGEMENT
 Infectious immunology hepatitis B surface
APPROACHES TO QUALITY MANAGEMENT: antigen (HBsAg)
 human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)
a. Total quality management (TQM)-focuses
 hepatitis C virus (HCV)
themes, processes, statistics and delivery of services that meet or
exceed customer expectation
QUALITY CONTROL- monitors overall reliability of laboratory
b. Continuous quality improvement (CQI)- element of TQM that
results in terms of accuracy and precision
strives to continually improve practices and not just meet establish
quality standards QUALITY CONTROL/STATISTICAL PROCESS CONTROL samples
the measurement procedure by assaying QC materials for which
c. Six sigma- hands on process based on statistics and quantitative
the correct result is known in advance monitors the overall
measurements with a single mantra of improvements
reliability of laboratory results in terms of accuracy and
PROCESS OF SIGMA 5 STEPS: precision.

1.Define Terms:
2.Measure 1) Accuracy- closeness to the result to the true or actual
value
3.Analyze
2) Precision- results that agree closely with each other
4.Improve

5.Control 3) Internal QC- analysis of control samples together with the

d. Lean-process ultimately define to reduce waste and improve
customers satisfaction
QUALITY ASSURANCE
Quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC) are two aspects of
quality management While some quality assurance and quality
control activities are interrelated, the two are defined differently.
Quality Assurance- activities, responsibilities cover virtually all of
the quality system.
Quality Control- subset of the quality assurance activities
QUALITY ASSURANCE 2 MAJOR COMPONENTS:
 INTERNAL QUALITY ASSURANCE SYSTEM (IQAS)- includes
day to day activity that are undertaken in order to control
factors or variables that may affect test results.
 EXTERNAL QUALITY ASSURANCE SYSTEM (EQAS)-checking
performance among clinical laboratories and facilitated by
designated external agency
patient's specimen. important of daily monitoring for
accuracy
4) Delta Check- algorithm in which a current laboratory
result is compared with result of pain on a previous
specimen from the same patient
5) External QC/ Proficiency-testing samples of unknown
concentration of analytes and periodically by regulatory
agency to participating in laboratories.
CONTINUOUS QUALITY IMPROVEMENT is a management
philosophy that organizations use to reduce waste, increase
efficiency, and increase internal (meaning, employees) and
external (meaning, customer) satisfaction. It is an ongoing
process that evaluates how an organization works and ways
to improve its processes.

NRL-EQAS:

 National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI)

 Hematology and Coagulation
 Research Institute of Tropical Medicine (RITM)
 Microbiology (identification and antibiotic
susceptibility testing) and
 Parasitology (identification of ova and
quantitation of malaria)
 Lung Center of the Philippines (LCP)
 Clinical Chemistry (for testing 10 analytes,
namely glucose, creatinine, total protein,
albumin, blood urea nitrogen, uric acid,
cholesterol, sodium, potassium, and chloride)
 East Avenue Medical Center (EAMC)
 Drugs of abuse (methamphetamine and
cannabinoids)