[Histonet] Re: Basis for Quality Work in a Histotech

[Bob Richmond]

From: Kim Donadio <one_angel_secret <@t> yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Histonet] Basis for Quality Work in a Histotech
To: "O'Donnell, Bill" <billodonnell <@t> catholichealth.net>,        Maria Mejia
        <mbmphoto <@t> gmail.com>,   "Morken, Timothy"
        <Timothy.Morken <@t> ucsfmedctr.org>
Cc: "histonet <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu"
        <histonet <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu>
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Kim Donadio (where?) comments:
>>I'd like to add my two cents to the measuring "Quality" topic. I'll make it short. - You should have a "Quality Management" program. It's vital to track errors, types of errors, frequency and who etc. This is NOT a tool for blame as we are all adults or we should be. It is however a tool for tracking trends, making improvements and yes if you did see someone making a mistake often, you would have the data to educate particular personnel. - There are QM tools out there from various organizations. And yes, there are standards of deviations such as the TAT for frozens. There are standards for other things as well. Set Standards of excellence with your Pathologist. Make goals. Track them. Follow improvement.<<

I'm going to add a sour and cynical rejoinder. As most of you know,
I'm an elderly pathologist who's spent the last 30 years as a locum
tenens, working maybe 60 pathology services in my "career". Sometimes
in a pathology practice I'll be asked to fill out daily "quality
whatever" (the patter changes with the years) reports about the
slides. I always dread having to do this, because I know that the more
of this paperwork I have to do, the worse the slides will be. The
worst was one that required several square inches of scribbling a day.
They couldn't mount a coverslip correctly.

Any meaningful system would require daily feedback from pathologist
(or other end user) to histotechnologist. I've never encountered a
pathology service that accomplished this.

Dang - now I'm remembering that this morning duodenal biopsy sections
were the best I'd ever seen here, and I forgot to tell the histotech
before she slipped out the door!

Bob Richmond
Samurai Pathologist
Maryville TN