QUALITY PERCEPTIONS OF MICROBIOLOGY SERVICES - A SURVEY OF INFECTIOUS-DISEASES SPECIALISTS

Opinions about the quality of their primary microbiology laboratory we re received from more than 500 practicing infectious diseases speciali sts by a nationally distributed questionnaire. Approximately 92% of th e respondents' primary laboratories were hospital-based, These sophist icated users rated the quality of their microbiology laboratories to b e generally high, with bacteriology receiving highest scores and paras itology the lowest scores, Fortunately, the most serious problems, suc h as failing to call a critical result and culture mishandled in the l aboratory, were experienced rarely, Laboratories directed by pathologi sts with specialty microbiology training, PHD microbiologists, and inf ectious diseases specialists were judged to he of highest quality, Ame rican Board of Medical Microbiology certification of the laboratory di rector was related to higher overall quality perceptions. Whereas phys ician-customer opinions may not directly measure a laboratory's analyt ic quality, they are an important performance measure on which laborat ories can base quality improvement activities in both service and anal ytical aspects of performance.