title: Strategies for quality management in clinical microbiology.
abstract: Quality assessment and performance improvement are important management functions that add value to information and services produced by the clinical microbiology laboratory. Analytical quality control procedures are well standardized, and in many cases regulated. Whereas preanalytical and postanalytical factors have considerable impact on quality, performance assessment and improvement in this area have received less consideration. This article describes an approach to quality management of the total testing process in clinical microbiology, including interdisciplinary participation, specimen quality, test use, result use, turnaround time, information quality, user perceptions, and benchmarking.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Pathology, Tucson Veterans Affairs Medical Center, University of Arizona, USA.
authors.forename: R B
authors.initials: RB
authors.lastname: Schifman
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D007753:Laboratories / Q000592:standards*; D008829:Microbiology; D011786:Quality Control; D013048:Specimen Handling / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards; D013997:Time Factors