Laboratory Receives CAP accreditation

MILWAUKEE (12/18/2008) - The Children's Hospital of Wisconsin laboratory recently received accreditation from the College of American Pathologists. The accreditation program helps advance the quality of pathology and laboratory services through education and standard setting. It improves patient safety by ensuring laboratories meet or exceed regulatory requirements. Accreditation also advances laboratory practice excellence and enhances peer review.

The Pathology and Laboratory Medicine department is required to participate in a biannual inspection to maintain its license to provide patient testing. "By selecting CAP and participating in their laboratory accreditation program we have raised the bar of excellence in laboratory service and quality standards for each of our laboratory sub-specialty areas," said Altheia Roquemore-Goins, MS, BA, MT(ASCP), director of Laboratory Administration.

The CAP accreditation program inspects all aspects of the lab process:

• Specimen collection.
• Testing processes.
• Information management of test result reporting.
• Quality management in the laboratory.

A team of nine laboratory professionals including pathologists, technical specialists, medical technologists and histotechnologists conducted one-on-one meetings with main campus hospital staff in the main laboratory, blood gas lab on the third floor, and hospital areas performing point-of-care tests such as the cath lab, Emergency Department/Trauma Center, transport and Dermatology Clinic. Inspectors reviewed a checklist of approximately 3,000 questions in areas based on laboratory disciplines, management and operations.

"This is a very prestigious accreditation because you are graded by your peers," said Karen Kutschenreuter, MT(ASCP) manager, Laboratory Core Testing. "An enormous amount of time was devoted to achieving our CAP accreditation, and the laboratory team continued to serve our customers."