Preparing for Laboratory Inspection

Preparing for a laboratory inspection can be laborious and time consuming. It is important for hospitals and laboratories to maintain quality within their day to day operation that ensures constant readiness and thorough preparation for on-site inspections. This can be accomplished by implementing a quality management system that allows the laboratory to document all preparation for laboratory inspections. iPassport QMS is an electronic quality management system which has been designed specifically for healthcare organizations and laboratories, allowing them to work to any set of standards or requirements. The laboratory or hospital can ensure they are prepared for laboratory inspections, both announced and unannounced by any accrediting body including CAP, CLIA, COLA, JCAHO, CPA and ISO, for example. This can be done by loading the appropriate requirements, standards or checklists on to the system. Up to date supporting documentation, including procedures and policies can then be linked to the relevant requirement, thus streamlining preparation for each inspection.

Substantial documentation, including maintenance records, calibration logs, up to date procedures, policies, complete review histories, meeting documentation, incident reporting, follow up and correction are all required to provide evidence of regulatory compliance. Quality managers need to be able to gather all of this information while preparing for a laboratory inspection. iPassport QMS makes this seemingly impossible job manageable by allowing quality managers, safety training officers and general technicians and staff aware of any outstanding tasks in order to prepare for an upcoming laboratory inspection. Maintenance events, document reviews, incidents events and much more can have tasks associated with them, allowing the user to log into the system or to receive an email notification when a task is due. Additionally, Internal Audits can be created based on the criteria to which the lab will be inspected can also be conducted and documented on the system. This allows the lab to have tools at hand to manage and simplify the process of preparing for a laboratory inspection.