Birmingham Quality stands the test of time
Laboratories : Case Study
Birmingham Quality stands the test of time
Dr David Bullock ,
CONSULTANT CLINICAL SCIENTIST AND DIRECTOR , BIRMINGHAM QUALITY
External Quality Assessment provider Birmingham Quality continues to flourish after 21 years at Birmingham Research Park , helping to ensure clinical laboratory test results are accurate , reliable and comparable wherever they are produced
The NHS is in a period of rapid change and pathology has been undergoing its own transformation in response to innovative scientific and technical advances , increasing demand , and a relentless drive to improve efficiency and value for money .
The primary concern , however , is on quality , with a focus on continual improvement . Quality must be scrutinized and made transparent and a culture developed which seeks constantly to improve clinical and working practices through learning , sharing and innovation .
External Quality Assessment ( EQA ) services ensure that all hospital laboratories and other testing sites give the correct result wherever specimens are analysed , safeguarding quality , safety and equity of patient care across the UK , as all measurements ( including blood tests ) are subject to variation . EQA safeguards reliable patient care through assessment and surveillance of the performance both of laboratories and of the commercial products they use .
Pathology has been undergoing its own transformation in response to innovative scientific and technical advances
The aim of an EQA scheme is to provide clinical laboratories with an objective assessment of their performance , to help them improve the standard of their results and hence , the quality of patient care .
There are high levels of confidence in the services provided . This confidence is not without foundation as the UK has
Complex information , clearly presented
Laboratories working in networks and screening programmes with analysers at multiple sites are increasingly common . It is challenging to ensure that all the constituent parts are of equal quality , and difficult to spot problems in one site or analyser amongst many results from a large network . One patient may be tested in different parts of a network and the results need to be comparable .
UK NEQAS needed to provide a means to ensure that performance and all the components of a service can be monitored easily . As part of the services provided on behalf of UK NEQAS , Birmingham Quality ( BQ ) summarised EQA reports across multisite laboratory departments to gain an overall picture of performance across their network : This included :
• Clear visual cues to facilitate interpretation
• Coloured symbols reflecting the magnitude and direction of bias for individual specimens .
• ‘ Traffic lights ’ for performance over the last six months .
The benefits of BQ ’ s activities led to the following :
• The presentation of complex data in a simplified , easy to assimilate format with potentially important variances highlighted clearly .
• ‘ Penalty box ’ plots of bias against consistency-of-bias
Example extract of Network Report , showing relative performance of a group of laboratories
demonstrate at a glance whether patients ’ results will be the same across all analysers and sites .
• Method comparison data in relation to national target values across sites .
• Performance management of multiple instruments within a laboratory , or across a geographical area has been made more effective .
• Reduced likelihood of missing potential performance issues – these are highlighted clearly .
• Improved EQA for Screening Programmes eg . UK Newborn Screening Programme .
• Network reports facilitate accreditation compliance for multi-site departments
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