Lab Accreditation Updates

Two of the main accreditation organizations for laboratories, the Joint Commission and the College of American Pathologists, have issued some updates that labs need to be aware of for 2017:

• The Joint Commission’s customer portal, Lab Central Connect® will no longer be in use effective Jan. 1, 2017. Labs use the web portal to store accreditation information. Information that would have been supplied through the portal instead will be worked into the application. After Jan. 1, labs won’t be able to access information in that portal so all labs need to make copies of information stored in Lab Central Connect before Dec. 31, 2017, the Joint Commission advises. Labs must also export the test system lists and the personnel lists into Excel or PDF files.

• The Joint Commission also announced that as of Jan. 1, 2017 labs won’t have to submit signed attestations of annual verification of proficiency (PT) testing. Lab’s PT data will be reviewed during surveys and the Joint Commission will keep records of PT participation.

• Mid-November, the College of American Pathologists (CAP) issued a reminder to labs that required proficiency testing for waived whole blood glucose on glucose meters will end in 2017. But, labs must still complete PT enrollment for waived whole blood glucose not performed on a glucose meter. So, CAP has created two activity codes/descriptions for waived whole blood glucose for meters and waived whole blood glucose on non-meter analyzers. The revised activity menu is available at CAP’s website.