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Clinical Chemistry 50: 753-755, 2004; 10.1373/clinchem.2003.028118
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(Clinical Chemistry. 2004;50:753-755.)
© 2004 American Association for Clinical Chemistry, Inc.

Technical Briefs

Web-Based Method for Establishing National Competency Benchmarks in Fourteen Areas of Clinical Laboratory Services

Sara Kim1,2,a, Mary Reeves3 and Michael L. Astion3

Departments of1 Medical Education, 2 Family Medicine, and3 Laboratory Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle WA

aaddress correspondence to this author at: Department of Family Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine, Box 354696, Seattle, WA 98195; fax 206-543-3821, e-mail sarakim@u.washington.edu

The first 300 words of the full text of this article appear below.

More than a decade has passed since clinical laboratories have been required by CLIA to implement competency assessment for laboratory personnel. During this time, only a few studies regarding competency assessment have been published, including a large survey of the competency assessment methods favored by laboratories in the US (1). Previous work from our group at the University of Washington Department of Laboratory Medicine has focused on computer-based methods of developing, maintaining, and assessing competency of laboratory personnel [For a recent review, see Ref. (2)]. This effort started in 1992 and for the first 8 years consisted of development of tutorial or competency assessment software and software distribution on floppy or compact disks. Starting in 2000, our work has been delivered on-line (Medical Training Solutions; Seattle, WA; www.medtraining.org).

Microscopic urinalysis has been a particular focus of our research and development regarding computer-based competency assessment (3)(4)(5). In one study, we used computer-based urinalysis competency assessment for 2 years in one institution (4). We reported the overall competency of 58 technologists and highlighted areas of conceptual difficulty encountered by these technologists. In a later study, we demonstrated the feasibility of Web-based urinalysis competency assessment, presenting competency assessment performance data from 369 technologists across 131 clinical sites (5). Both studies showed how computer programs can be used to assess the performance of an individual or group of technologists over time.

The work presented here is a significant extension of our previous work regarding online competency assessment of laboratory personnel. Since July 2002, we developed a subscription-based online competency assessment system for 14 different areas of laboratory services and implemented it in the US in ~225 laboratories. The purpose of the system is to provide an objective method of . . . [Full Text of this Article]






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