Quality Control for HIV Testing

Quality assurance is the dynamic and ongoing process of monitoring the diagnostic laboratory’s testing system for reproducibility that permits corrective action when established criteria are not met. Those techniques include statistical quality control procedures and procedures for method selection, method evaluation, preventive maintenance, in-service training, and laboratory management. Quality control is the study of those errors that are the responsibility of the laboratory and of the procedures used to recognize and minimize them. This study includes all errors arising within the laboratory between the receipt of the specimen and the dispatch of the test results report. On some occasions the responsibility of the laboratory may extend to the collection of the appropriate specimen, the method and time of collection, and the type of collection tube used.