Importance Of Laboratory Medicine

Laboratory medicine is the backbone of health care delivery system. Clinical laboratories play a pivotal role in the health of a patient regarding diagnosis, prevention and management of disease. The analytical results generated by the laboratory influence the health care decisions thus being of paramount importance to the health and safety of patients.1 Reliable laboratory results therefore are a dire need of health care system.

Accreditation is a process of evaluation and validation of a clinical laboratory against an internationally recognized set of standards. It is a procedure by which an authoritative body gives formal recognition that certain laboratory can carry out specific tests producing valid results. Laboratory accreditation is

The experts producing these guidelines were fully aware of changing lab culture and modern needs of patient care system. This resulted in further deliberations and revision of these existing standards. The proposed revised version once again was focused on quality management. Evaluation of technical competency of testing laboratories was a deficient parameter however.

Later, another standard ISO 17025 was designed to assess the technical competency of any type of calibration or testing laboratory. Considering the significance of both, quality management system(QMS)and technical competence, in 2003, the first edition of an international standard , the ISO 15189 “medical laboratories- requirements of quality and competence” was proposed. This laboratory standard combines the requirements of ISO 9001 and ISO/IEC 17025 and caters both for the requirements for

It encourages and enforces improvement in the quality and reliability of laboratories. Accreditation provides implementing and monitoring a comprehensive laboratory management system.3,8 It provides verification that laboratories are adhering to established quality and competence standards necessary for reliable patient testing and the safety of staff and the environment.9 Accreditation provides a mechanism by which patient, health care organization and governments can measure the performance of laboratories against international standards.10 Test reports generated in accredited laboratories are accepted all over the world and the laboratories are recognized for superior test reliability, operational performance, quality management and