Harris Health System Electrodiagnostic Laboratory
What prompted you to accredit your lab initially?
I was motivated by the quality standards of lab accreditation to show we provide high quality, evidence based, laboratory standard approved services.
What value or benefits have you seen from accreditation?
We have been able to show our patients, referring physicians, administration, and national organization at AANEM that we care deeply about the quality of the services we provide to our patients. We also follow all the guidelines provided by the AANEM. We also emphasize kind, empathic services knowing many of our patients are experiencing pain or suffering at the time of testing.
How did going through the accreditation process help you shore up or improve processes and procedures? Did you make any patient report improvements? If so, which ones?
Yes, it enabled us to systematically analyze our processes for improvement, obtain approval from administration for quality machines and supplies, and documentation of evacuation and fire standards. All of this was very helpful not only for our patients, but our staff and administration. We also were able to standardize inspection of machines and biomedical support teams.
What did you learn by going through the accreditation process?
Initially, there were documents that we needed to locate such as fire evacuation and inspection plans. But after the first application, the process of recertification was rapid and smooth.
What was the most challenging portion of the application?
Finding all the documents needed such as those noted above.
Did anything about the accreditation process surprise you? If so, what?
I did not expect to need to provide inspection reports for fire safety.
Why should others accredit their laboratory?
Accreditation provides a national standard whereby everyone who gets an EMG/NCS will know they get the same high quality, evidence based product. In the same way, we know what quality to expect from a national standardized product eg. Starbucks anywhere in the world, we would hope to provide the same for EMG/NCS.
