More U.S. Medical Laboratories Ready to Step up to ISO 15189 Accreditation
North America’s three ISO 15189 accreditation bodies will be at Lab Quality Confab, along with most of the nation’s ISO-15189 accredited clinical pathology laboratories
In the United States and Canada, acceptance and use of ISO 15189:2007 Medical Laboratories has been limited to a handful of clinical pathology laboratories—except in the Canadian province of Ontario, where, starting almost eight years ago, ISO 15189 became the basis of the province’s mandatory clinical laboratory accreditation program.
But now more pathologists and clinical laboratory managers south of the U.S.–Canadian border are asking a fundamental question: “Is ISO 15189 accreditation an effective way to move my laboratory organization to higher levels of analytical quality while continuously reducing or eliminating errors that affect patient safety and clinical outcomes? More senior medical lab leaders are answering this question with a “yes.”
Clinical Laboratories Turning to ISO 15189
