[Histonet] Competency Assessments

[Elaine allison Hoffman]

Greeting everyone in Histo-land,
I'm still working on a competency assessment procedure but I have a question that needs clarification.  According to CAP, "A laboratory must evaluate and document the competency of all testing personnel for each test system.  A TEST SYSTEM is the process that includes pre-analytic, analytic, and post-analytic steps used to produce a test result or set of results.  A test system may be manual, automated, multi-channel or single use and can include reagents, components, equipment or instruments required to produce results".  My question is, what histology tasks or steps are considered pre-analytic, analytic, and post-analytic?  In all the resources I've found, there seems to be a difference of opinion as to what is considered pre-analytic, analytic, and post-analytic specific to histology tasks which is not really considered "resulting" in histology. Also, there should be a different TEST SYSTEM for what pathologists do (resulting slides) and what PA's do (gross description of tissue), so what tasks are considered pre-analytic, analytic, and post-analytic specific for their jobs? A person could go crazy with all this and to ask an inspector, they aren't really sure either.  And different inspectors will give you different answers.Any takers out there?
Elaine Hoffman