Concepts for a Model of Good Medical Laboratory Services
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Rainer Haeckel
Abstract
Several international standards and corresponding interpretation documents for quality management systems have been published. Although these standards are found useful to some extent, they are considered to be insufficient in several areas important for medical laboratories particularly in the pre- and post-examinational phases. The normative document for accreditation of laboratories (ISO/IEC Guide 25) is presently being revised and a document for medical laboratories (ISO/TC 212, CD 15189) is at draft stage. Both aim to include aspects of total quality management.
The concept of total quality management is rather vague. Generally, its goal has been defined as "business excellence". This term, however, needs some explanation if applied to medical laboratories.
Therefore, a project group of the European Confederation of Laboratory Medicine (ECLM) has developed a model for total quality management, which is based on a comprehensive management concept issued by the European Foundation for Quality Management. In the case of a medical laboratory, the term "business excellence" should be replaced by "good medical laboratory services". The proposed model could serve as a basis for future developments of total quality management standards in laboratory medicine. The goal of the "journey" should be clarified before it starts. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to develop a model of a good medical laboratory.
Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG
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Articles in the same Issue
- New Trends in Immunoassay Methodology
- Progress in Immunoassay Technology
- Standardization of Steroid Immunoassays – In Theory an Easy Task
- Thermodynamic Parameters in Immunoassay
- Engineering of an Anti-Steroid Antibody: Amino Acid Substitutions Change Antibody Fine Specificity from Cortisol Estradiol
- Antigenic Definition of Cardiac Troponin I
- Peptide Models of Immunological Recognition: Paratope Dissection by Multiple Peptide Synthesis
- Remodeling of Glycoprotein and Carbohydrate Antigens
- Strongly Enhanced Serum Levels of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF) after Poly-trauma and Burn
- Rapid Electrophoretic Separation of Pre-ß-Migrating High Density Lipoproteins Using Automated PhastSystem(tm): Application to Analysis of Lecitihin: Cholesterol Acyltransferase-Deficient Plasma
- Decrease in High Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol (HDL-C) Levels Following Gemfibrozil Therapy
- Reference Intervals for Serum Cystatin C and Serum Creatinine in Adults
- Concepts for a Model of Good Medical Laboratory Services
- Diagnostic Kits Derived from Standard Method "DGKC 94" as a Potential Tool for Improvement of Analytical Standardization and Clinical Utility of Alkaline Phosphatase
- Antioxidant Interferences in Superoxide Dismutase Activity Methods Using Superoxide Radical as Substrate
- Cytokines and Soluble Adhesion Molecules in Laboratory Diagnostics. Report from a Meeting Held at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg on 25 November 1997
- IFCC-WorldLabNews
