New lab accreditation tool

CAP Today

August 2009

Beginning this month, a new tool to help laborator-ies ensure that their personnel meet requirements will be part of the application and reapplication process for CAP accreditation. Called the Laboratory Personnel Evaluation Roster, the tool will make it easier for the laboratory to have all of its personnel education and licensing documentation in place.

In addition, the CAP has added to its checklist new, more specific questions about the evaluation of personnel qualifications. Until recently, the CAP had only one question in the laboratory general checklist, GEN.54750, about testing personnel qualification. “This question required that the laboratory have evidence to verify that all testing personnel have been evaluated against CLIA requirements,” says R. Bruce Williams, MD, chair of the CAP Commission on Laboratory Accreditation. “But there were no tools in the checklist or in the inspector training to complement this.” In reaccrediting the CAP, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services requested that the CAP provide tools to ensure that all laboratory personnel files are complete. “As a result,” Dr. Williams says, “the CAP developed this tool, which is more specific, to aid in this process, along with providing guidelines for inspection teams.”