Accreditation of medical laboratories -contribution to a quality medical care for a patient

Accreditation is a procedure by which an accreditation body gives formal recognition that a laboratory is competent to carry out specific tasks, according to a specific standard. In the case of medical laboratories it is a standard CSN EN ISO 15189:2007, Medical laboratories - Particular requirements for quality and competence.

Medical laboratory services are essential for patient care and therefore have to be available to meet the needs of all patients and the clinical personnel responsible for the care of those patients. Such services include arrangements for requisition, patient preparation, patient identification, collection of samples, transportation, storage, processing and examination of clinical samples, together with subsequent validation, interpretation, reporting and advice, in addition to the considerations of safety and ethics in medical laboratory work.

All accredited laboratories are characterised by professional competence, and, independent and impartial approaches to providing medical laboratory services, functional and implemented quality management system, including internal and external quality control of examination results.