STRATEGIES FOR QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN CLINICAL MICROBIOLOGY

Quality assessment and performance improvement are important managemen t functions that add value to information and services produced by the clinical microbiology laboratory. Analytical quality control procedur es are well standardized, and in many cases regulated. Whereas preanal ytical and postanalytical factors have considerable impact on quality, performance assessment and improvement in this area have received les s consideration. This article describes an approach to quality managem ent of the total testing process in clinical microbiology, including i nterdisciplinary participation, specimen quality, test use, result use , turn-around time, information quality, user perceptions, and benchma rking.