R. Haeckel et M. Kindler, Effect of current and forthcoming European legislation and standardizationon the setting of quality specifications by laboratories, SC J CL INV, 59(7), 1999, pp. 569-573
Citations number
11
Categorie Soggetti
Research/Laboratory Medicine & Medical Tecnology","Medical Research General Topics
Journal title
SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF CLINICAL & LABORATORY INVESTIGATION
A network of national and international guidelines and directives developed
in the last few decades by various bodies will lead to a new concept of to
tal quality for medical laboratory services comprising legislative regulati
ons on national and international levels, standardizations backed up by leg
islation and recommendations of professional societies. One example is the
IVD Directive of the European Community. It will not only stimulate accredi
tation in the field of laboratory medicine, but also necessitate numerous s
tandardization activities which are presently co-ordinated by the European
Committee for Standardization (CEN). Another standardization example is the
development of quality management systems, mainly by ISO. The ISO 9000 ser
ies has become the most successful family of standards world-wide. Meanwhil
e, specific standards for the needs of laboratories (ISO 17025), and in par
ticular of medical laboratories (ISO 15189), are being worked out. A new tr
end to develop quality management systems towards total quality management
systems can be observed including additional aspects such as economic and q
uality interests of society, customers and owners of laboratories. The goal
of all activities is to create a network of confidence which provides some
guarantee to the clients, i.e. the physicians and their patients, that the
y will receive a high-quality medical laboratory service.