UMC was recently re-accredited with a lab certificate by the College of American Pathologists (CAP). This program focuses on continuous improvement, patient care and safety.
Every two years UMC is inspected by the CAP through a collaborative process that encourages our improvement. CAP accreditation is a rigorous and robust process that utilizes thousands of established performance standards and regulations. Some of the processes they found impressive in the UMC lab are: 1. patient evaluation, ensuring vitals are monitored on a timely basis for all patients receiving blood transfusions. 2. monitoring Emergency Center turnaround time to ensure we are providing results in a timely manner. 3. monitoring Blood Culture and Sputum Contamination rates to ensure a quality specimen is collected.
“We strive to do our very best for our patients and community,” said Marisol Martinez, UMC Laboratory Director. “Being accredited by CAP is an affirmation to our UMC Lab Team, our patients and providers that the UMC Lab is providing accurate and first-rate laboratory results for the right patient at the right time.”
CAP accreditation is recognized as the ‘gold standard’ in laboratory accreditation and laboratory excellence which makes UMC proud to be a recipient of this certificate. The employment of 140 Medical Laboratory Science professionals, performing approximately 1.9 million tests annually with high accuracy and satisfaction rates shows UMC’s efforts to continue to achieve improvement in patient care and safety.