065 - Clinical audit
Autore/i: J.H. Barth
Rivista: RIMeL - IJLaM, Vol. 2, N. 3-S1, 2006 (MAF Servizi srl ed.)
Pagina/e: 65-67
Laboratory medicine was one of the first areas in clinical medicine to embrace the widespread use of audit. This reflective process undoubtedly contributed to the improvement in the standard of laboratory analyses and has been enhanced by the uptake of external as well as internal quality assurance. External quality assurance has been continuously refined and is now accepted as a routine component of everyday laboratory practice. Moreover, it is embraced by technologists and managers alike which ensures that problems are not only rapidly identified but proactively sought and actively rectified. EQA has continued to evolve and over recent years, some schemes, notably UK NEQAS, has introduced exercises to evaluate interpretative and investigation strategies of laboratories. Clinical audit is the next step in the process of ensuring that laboratories provide accurate useful investigations for clinical care. This phase is being driven both by the evidence based philosophy of 21st century medicine and also by the near universal need to provide the most cost effective services. The funding position of laboratory medicine throughout the world is becoming critical. Over the past few decades, this has been approached by the use of increasing levels of automation and the use of discretionary test groups rather than indiscriminate profiles. At the same time, attempts have been made to improve clinicians use of laboratories; but this is quite labour intensive and only provides small benefits1,2. The next process in improving laboratory usage will be through electronic requesting linked to intelligent systems. However, these systems will need to be designed with appropriate guidelines and these ...