Solution: An effective quality management system (QMS) is key to the delivery of high-quality test results and excellent patient care. Laboratories must have a comprehensive, effective, and documented quality and service plan to meet regulatory requirements and allow for continuous improvement.
Benefit: As part of this assessment, Accumen will perform a comprehensive evaluation of the lab’s QMS, technical performance, and service to its clients. Specific elements will vary based on size and type, but typically include document review, personnel assessment, facilities and equipment evaluation, process evaluation, client services, and safety. Based on the results of the assessment, the lab will be provided with a list of recommendations to improve its QMS, technical performance, and service to clients.
Solution: Quality is important in ensuring patient testing is performed timely and accurately. Patient care is tied to the quality of test results as they are used for diagnosis, medication administration, and many more medical decisions. Quality in the laboratory assures every step within the testing process is performed correctly. There are three major categories in the testing process – preanalytical, analytical, and post-analytical. To ensure quality, metrics should be chosen for assessing steps in each category. The metrics are then measured, tracked, and acted upon.
Benefit: Accumen’s Lab Analytic Suite offers a Quality and Service Dashboard displaying metrics in a “stoplight” format. Color-coding allows the user to quickly see areas that need attention and to drill down to target outliers. Chosen metrics include the major categories in the testing process, including collection and specimen quality, departmental TAT compliance, critical call compliance, and corrected report metrics. Target and warning values can be configured by the client, or Accumen benchmarks can be applied. Metrics are tracked over time and displayed for the past 24 hours, 7 days, and 30 days. For more specific analysis, the software allows specification of a date range. Additional drill-down enables visualization of data by facility, department, and numerous other parameters.
