[Histonet] H&E CONTROL - RE: Histonet Digest, Vol 63, Issue 20

[Kay, Karen]

Hi Kimberly,
A H&E control slide should be run prior to any patient slides. Much
easier to fix issues before staining hundreds of patient slides.  We
create H&E control blocks with small portions of appendix, skin,
placenta, and liver embedded in one block. A technologist reads the
slide daily and records quality of nuclear and cytoplasmic staining as
well as the the lot number of both the hematoxylin and eosin. These
results are recorded electronically in our QA  LIS.
Should we encounter any issues with the control slide, changes are made,
and another control slide is run before any patient slides are stained.
While multiple control slide runs do not happen very often, it is still
much better to do that rather than correcting multiple sets of patient
slides.
The slides are dated and if more than one is required, numbered with the
appropriate number.  We keep our control slides each in a slide file
card for the week to refer to if we want to check any changes that may
be occuring. After that the control slides are moved to cardboard slide
boxes to be retained under our Canadian retention guidelines. The slide
boxes are dated with a date range of contents.
Hope this is of help to you.
Karen J Kay, MLT
Pathology Supervisor
Chinook Health Laboratory
Chinook Regional Hospital
Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada




Message: 16
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 08:07:23 -0800
From: "Jodie Robertson" <jrobertson <@t> pathologysciences.com>
Subject: RE: [Histonet] Daily H&E Control
To: "Marshall, Kimberly" <Kimberly.Marshall <@t> ahss.org>,
	<histonet <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu>
Message-ID:
	<518CD6920AA7154193CBE5977CD88073177E98 <@t> psmgsrv2.PSMG.local>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"

You should have a daily H&E control that is run BEFORE any patient
slides are.  There can always be a situation arise (i.e. baskets put in
the wrong place) that can affect the staining outcome.  It's much easier
to correct on a control than have to either de-stain and re-stain or
recut patient tissue.  We used to use the patient's slides as controls
until we got the system better.  We use skin, placenta, tonsil, appendix
and uterus as a control that we place in one block.  This gives us a
broad range of stain quality.  We grade the slide for quality as HT's
and record it for our paperwork.  If it passes for us, we stain the
patient slides.  The pathologist gets the control slide as well and
signs off on his paperwork before reading the slides received.

Jodie Robertson, HT(ASCP) QIHC 
Pathology Sciences Medical Group
Chico, CA  95926 


-----Original Message-----
From: histonet-bounces <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu
[mailto:histonet-bounces <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu] On Behalf Of
Marshall, Kimberly
Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2009 7:30 AM
To: histonet <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu
Subject: [Histonet] Daily H&E Control

Howdy fellow Histo Techs,

 

  I am hoping to get an answer from everyone regarding C.A.P. and the
rules about a daily H&E control.  This year will be the first one for
our lab with CAP, I want to know if there is a regulation about having a
daily H&E control to view and if so what tissue do they want used.  Up
till now each day I give my Pathologist a QC sheet to fill out and I
make any changes the next day if there are any problems.  My pathologist
use the daily slides as a control.  Is this enough or do I need to have
record of a control separate from my daily workload?  Thanks in advance
for you help.

 

Kimberly Marshall H.T. (ASCP)



This communication is intended for the use of the recipient to which it is addressed, and may contain confidential, personal and or privileged information.  Please contact us immediately if you are not the intended recipient.  Do not copy, distribute or take action relying on it. Any communication received in error, or subsequent reply, should be deleted or destroyed.