Promoting a culture of quality is a necessity for laboratories to sustain compliance with ISO 15189 standards. To ensure this, the department needed to equip themselves with the necessary knowledge and skills to identify, implement and sustain quality improvement projects.
They enrolled 15 staff members in the Power of Process Champion and Master programs (each 1 week in duration). These programs aim to equip professionals with an in-depth understanding of laboratory processes, how they relate to laboratory performance, how to identify performance problems, assess and quantify the expected impact of change before implementation, and propose corrective actions. As part of the program, delegates are asked to identify (using the tools acquired in the program) an improvement opportunity within their department. The remainder of this case study follows the improvement project of ................... Pathology Manager, one of the delegates who was enrolled in the programs.