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The American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC) recently announced the launch of its tenth certificate program: Patient-Focused Quality Competence: The QC Gap. The new program, designed for laboratorians devoted to learning about numerical quality control (QC), evaluates and improves current QC practices to match patient need.
Betsy Garman, MA, publications and distance learning specialist for AACC, said that a gap currently exists in laboratory quality control both in practice and in theory. "By evaluating and improving numerical QC, laboratorians can better meet patients' needs," she said.
The certificate program, which has no specific professional experience or educational requirements and is open to all laboratorians, teaches those enrolled more about detecting and preventing quality control issues, Garman said. "Participants in this program will learn the very fundamentals of how lab quality control works."
QC Fundamentals
Developed in conjunction with AWEsome Numbers Inc. of Worthington, ON, Canada, the program explains the basics of laboratory QC, featuring case studies and self-assessments that illustrate the clinical consequences of laboratory error, the importance of total error and how the processes used in the laboratory affect the ability of detect significant changes.
Effective QC processes are essential to prevent reporting clinically misleading patient results, Garman said. "This program is unique because it provides participants with assessment tools for their individual situations, so that they know where improvements are needed and how to make them."
 Patient Focus
The program concentrates on patient-focused QC plus causes and consequences of a QC Gap, and consists of four online courses that can be completed in 1-2 hours each, five lectures with audio, evaluation tools, discussion questions and a final exam.
At the conclusion of the program, laboratorians will be able to describe how lab results directly impact patient care, relate types of lab errors to their impact on patient care, recognize how good QC practices prevent reporting misleading patient results, determine the existence of current QC gaps and test competency with basic QC theory and interpretation of QC charts, and indentify poorly and properly made QC charts, according to the AACC website.
Accessibility
Currently, the program costs $200 for AACC members and $400 for nonmembers. Discounts are available for groups of 5 or more people, Garman said. Participants can earn four continuing education units for completing the entire program.
The program is being immediately offered from Jan. 1-Dec. 31 of 2012, with program access for participants available until July 15, 2013. The program will be offered again on Jan. 1, 2013 and is expected to continue for 3 years, Garman said.
Additionally, all materials are available online and a number of resources are available for download so that when the program access ends, each individual has tools they can continue to refer to, Garman said.
"Clinicians should be able to ensure that their results are correct and should be able explain exactly how they received those results--this program helps them to meet those goals and interpret test results to the best of their ability."
Kelly Wolfgang is on staff at ADVANCE.
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