The attitude of laboratory personnel towards accreditation

Abstract

 A multiple-choice questionnaire was submitted to medical technologists in two medical laboratories, 10 months after the laboratories had obtained an EN 45001 (Beltest) accreditation. The majority of the technologists (85–90%) considered that their workload had been increased by the accreditation process but they did not think that the process had improved the quality of their results. The major advantages were: traceability, the fact that the technologists felt more confident about the procedures followed, they also received more responsibility and had a better knowledge of the tests performed. The major disadvantages were the increased paperwork, discrepancies between written procedures and the same procedures in practice, the fact that more attention was paid to the formalities rather than to the quality of the results and that the accreditation process decreased the technologists' adaptability. A small majority of the technologists prefered working in an accredited laboratory rather than in a non-accredited one.