Improve Your Medical Laboratory

By Author: supriyo banerjee
Total Articles: 738
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Keeping a medical lab in good shape is the responsibility of everyone who works in it. The most expensive equipment in the world won't help if you don't invest in knowledge and best practices. Here are two ways to invest in a sound future for your laboratory.

Online CME Credit and CE Credit

Continuing medical education, or CME, is an important part of any physician's experience. Some of you might remember Dr. Townshend, the character from the Scrubs episode "My Brother, My Keeper." Though he was beloved by hospital staff, his outdated procedures endangered patients' lives.

Nobody wants to be a Dr. Townshend. But when he said he was "too tired" to keep up his CME, some medical professionals could relate. New medical breakthroughs happen all the time. This is exciting for medicine and good for patients, but it can mean there's a lot of pressure just to keep up with it all.

If you can't get away from your desk, or your life, long enough to attend a seminar to pursue your CME or CE, then an online CME credit program could be just what you need to ...
... round out your education.

You can earn online CME credit and CE credit at your convenience. Most online CE and CME credit programs are divided into learning modules, which let you select the time, place and length of your educational sessions. You can log in at home or on the go... whenever you find yourself with some free time.

Not all online CME credit and CE credit courses are of equal quality, though. Make sure the courses you take online CME are verified, if not developed, by a respected university.

Winning The CLIA Inspection

The Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) were instituted by the FDA in 1998 to ensure nationwide standards of quality for all laboratories. The CLIA inspection is therefore a fact of any laboratory's existence. But if you make things as smooth and easy as you can for the inspector, it won't be a burdensome fact for either of you.

Make sure there is as little chance as possible that lab samples have been contaminated.

Follow all observed safety procedures.

Make sure your office is properly staffed. A CLIA inspection might get uncomfortable if you appear to have too few staffers, or too little equipment, to handle all your tests.

Ask your state health department for additional benchmarks. (The above points relate to federal CLIA inspection standards.)

Organize your records. A CLIA inspection can result in the request of any record at any time, but will probably focus on your laboratory's research specialties.

Test your staff. The inspectors will likely both quiz them and observe them on the job, especially if this is an initial CLIA inspection.

Do your own quality control assessments. Create an anonymous comment system so that staffers can help you identify problems. The CLIA inspection will treat your assessment as a starting point, and if you can fix a problem before the inspection even begins, all the better. Even if you can't, you can at least show awareness of the problem, and present a plan to deal with it!

COLA is a premier organization specializing in medical laboratory accreditation, consultation, education and online CME credit. To learn more about our programs such as CLIA Inspection, visit our website: Cola.org.