Laboratory Quality and Risk and Prevention and Priorities

In the August 2010  issue of Quality Progress (ASQ) there is an article entitled "Two in One" on Risk Strategy.  It is written by Gene Razzetti a management consultant and military analyst.  It is an excellent article.  While he writes about some ISO documents on risk, he has left out a document that in my opinion should be part of the medical laboratory qualitologists personal library:

ISO/TS 22367:2008 Medical laboratories -- Reduction of error through risk management and continual improvement.

 As a Technical specification (TS) the document had the opportunity of rapid publication without requiring the high demands of consensus needed for a standard.  But it is valuable because it ties together four elements that the qualitologist works with all the time (Quality, Risk, Prevention, Priority).

Working through remedial action and corrective actions are relatively easy, defining problems before they exist and then fixing them (Preventive Action) is tough.  Sometimes opportunites come from employee comments, concerns and complaints.  A big opportunity is by looking at implementation of new equipment or new procedures before they get implemented using risk tools such as the Failure Mode Effects Analysis (FMEA).  Another tool is using a RISK - Occurrence grid where on looks at the likelihood of the bad thing occurring (Remote, Rare, Common, Frequent) and its effects (Trivial, Minor, Major, Critical).  By creating measurement values to each pairing (a remote occurrence but with critical impact or a common occurrence with minor impact) one can define risk and set priorities.

These are decisions that come up all the time, and having a working strategy is REALLY useful.

The article in QP is pretty good and easy to follow.
But for a little bit of money you can order a copy of 22367.
Either way you can't loose.

m