Testing the testers to ensure your wellbeing

(Inside Aotea, April 2011)

Every year our laboratory is assessed by specially trained external auditors to ensure our staff, equipment and systems are operating safely and reliably.

The International Accreditation New Zealand (IANZ) auditors are here again next month and, as Aotea Pathology's general manager Keiry Belton explains below, they'll be looking carefully at everything we do.

The IANZ team spend a week studying our laboratory systems, how we collect and document samples, perform tests and report results.

They also look at our laboratory equipment, review our staff training and certification documents and check how our laboratory has performed in quality control programmes.

In a nutshell, every part of the laboratory that affects patient results is examined.

Every fourth year -- and this is one of them -- the assessment team also includes specialist pathologists and scientists from other laboratories in New Zealand who are experts in their field. This is all to make sure that we do things properly and that the diagnostic information we produce is clinically safe and reliable.

This assessment is the same for all pathology laboratories in New Zealand.

After the assessment the auditors and peer reviewers provide us with a report. They may ask for corrective actions to be undertaken if a process is considered inadequate, or they may make recommendations that will help us to do things better.

I am happy to let you know that we have never yet been asked to undertake a corrective action. We are justifiably proud of the quality of our laboratory and, while it is a testing time, we do look forward to the assessment visit.