Pictured are some of the staff from the Laboratory at Memorial Hospital, which passed a recent survey. Shown, from left to right, are: Jackie Estelle, Krista Whitley, Danielle Blickenstaff, Trevor McKee (department manager), Cassie Rouse, Abi Emberlin, and Christina Bartel. Not pictured: Nicole To, Kris Roney, Shafiq Hasan.
A Laboratory Survey conducted on April 21 showed the Laboratory at Memorial Hospital in Abilene passing a very long, and thorough, inspection by the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA).
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) regulates all laboratory testing (except research) performed on humans in the United States through the CLIA. The CLIA program is a Federal regulatory oversight program, the intent of which is to ensure the quality of all laboratory testing on humans in the United States for health purposes.
“This is wonderful news, and congratulations to our Laboratory staff and Trevor McKee, Laboratory Manager, for the work they have put in towards this accomplishment,” said Harold Courtois, Memorial Health System CEO. McKee, stated, “After all the things related to COVID that we had to deal with, we were able to maintain our policy and procedures, along with adapting to something new every day, to provide the best patient care possible.”
*If a laboratory performs moderate and/or high complexity tests (which Memorial Health System Laboratory does both), it is subject to the CLIA quality standards which include: personnel qualifications and responsibilities, proficiency testing (PT), quality control (QC), a recordkeeping system, and quality assurance (QA). These laboratories are inspected biennially. The standards for CLIA for high complexity tests are most stringent in the areas of laboratory director qualifications and quality control. The focus of these assessments, surveys, or inspections is ‘outcomes’. In the case of laboratories, this means whether the laboratory’s test results are accurate, reliable, and timely since most laboratories do not have direct interactions with patients’ outcomes.