DECISION
ISSUING THE GUIDELINES ON DEVELOPMENT OF STANDARD PRACTICE PROCEDURE IN MANAGEMENT OF LABORATORY QUALITY
MINISTER OF HEALTH
Pursuant to the Law on examination and treatment No. issued in 2009; Pursuant to the Decree No. 63/2012/ND-CP 31/8/2012 of the Government defining functions, duties, power and organizational structure of the Ministry of Health;
Considering the recommendation of the professional acceptance Council of Guidelines on development of standard practice procedure in management of laboratory quality;
At the request of the Director of Agency of Medical Services Administration;
DECIDES:
Article 1. Issuing with this Decision the “Guideline on development of standard practice procedure in management of laboratory quality” at medical facilities.
Article 2. The Guidelines on development of standard practice procedure in management of laboratory quality are applied at the medical facilities to gradually standardize the laboratory quality.
Article 3. This Decision takes effect from its signing date for issue.
Article 4. Chief of Ministry Office, Director of Agency of Medical Services Administration, Director of hospitals directly under the Ministry of Health, Director of Department of Health of provincies and centrally-run cities, the medical units of Ministries, sectors, Director of laboratory quality control centers and Head of relevant units are liable to execute this Decision./.
GUIDELINES
DEVELOPMENT OF STANDARD PRACTICE PROCEDURE IN MANAGEMENT OF LABORATORY QUALITY
(Issued with Decision No. 5530/QD-BYT dated 25/12/2015 of the Minister of Health)
INTRODUCTION
In recent years, the management of laboratory quality has received the special attention and steering from the Ministry of Health to improve the capacity of laboratory system, ensure the laboratory result is accurate, timely, avoid waste and save money for patients. In 2013, the Ministry of Health issued the Circular No. on “Guidelines on development of standard practice procedure in management of laboratory quality are applied at the medical facilities” specifying that all units must develop the standard practice procedure. This is one of the important tasks in management of laboratory quality to ensure the work is done consistently and the laboratory result is standardized and accurate. For the time being, a lot of units have implemented the above Circular. The laboratory quality is constantly improved and better controlled. However, there are in fact laboratories at medical facilities with standard laboratory procedures but incomplete, inconsistent and without high efficiency; there are also laborotories having inadequate or no standard laboratory procedures in prescribed quality management. The above problems are due to many causes and one of them is that there are officers, managers and persons performing laboratory work not understand the role and importance of compliance with the standard laboratory procedures in management of laboratory quality.
Therefore, the requirement laid down is to standardize and provide complete, detailed and systematic guidelines in developing the standard laboratory procedures in management of laboratory quality, providing assistance in assessment and examination of laboratory results and monitoring in a objective manner to ensure the laboratory result. The issue of guidelines on compiling the standard practice procedure in management of laboratory quality is very necessary.
The content of the Guidelines includes 03 chapters and annex 1 and 2, specify name and sample examples on standard practice procedure in management of laboratory quality.
This is the first time there is a complete guideline on developing the standard practice procedure in the management of laboratory quality. Therefore, the shortcomings are inevitable. The Ministry of Health (Agency of Medical Services Administration) is looking forward to receiving the comments from the units, individuals and experts to so that this Guideline material is increasingly improved with better quality in order to contribute to the highest benefits for patients.
Chief editor
Assoc. Prof. Dr.. Nguyen Thi Xuyen
Co- Chief editor
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Luong Ngoc Khue
Editorial Board
MMed.. Nguyen Trong Khoa
MMed. Dao Nguyen Minh
Dr.. Bui Thu Hien
MMed. Do Thi Thu Thuy
Dr. Duong Ngoc Cuong
MMed. Le Sinh Quan
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Dang Thi Ngoc Dung
MMed. Truong Quan Thuy
Dr. Nguyen Hong Hanh
Dr.Vu Van Truong
Professional appraisal Council
Professional appraisal Council
1. Prof. Do Dinh Ho, former Chairman of Vietnam Association for Chemistry and Biology
ABBREVIATIONS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter I
GENERAL PROVISIONS
I. Purpose
II. Subjects of application
III. Explanation of terms
IV. Implementation principles
Chapter II
STEPS TO DEVELOP THE STANDARD PRACTICE PROCEDURE
1. Preparation for development plan
2. Review and modification
3. Approval and issue
4. Training and use
5. Modification, addition and storage
Chapter III
GUIDELINES ON DRAFTING OF STANDARD PRACTICE PROCEDURE
I. Requirements for presentation
II. Requirements for minimum contents of standard practice procedure
REFERENCES
ANNEXES
Chapter I:
GENERAL PROVISIONS
I. Purpose
Guiding the drafting of standard practice procedure in management of laboratory quality (abbreviated as QTC), including the standard practice procedure on management and techniques in management of laboratory quality.
II. Subjects of application
1. Leadership of medical facilities;
2. Staff of laboratory;
3. Other relevant individuals and units in management of laboratory quality.
III. Interpretation of terms
The standard practice procedure (or standard operating procedure) in management of laboratory quality is a document guiding in detail and showing the way to conduct a specific work in management and technical skills to ensure the activities shall be done consistently with regulations.
IV. Implementation principles
1. Develop a standard practice procedure for all activities of management and technical skills.
2. The contents in this standard practice procedure must be written clearly, concisely, completely, understandable and comply with the guiding documents.
3. The standard practice procedure must be issued by the leadership of units or person having the authority to approve and issue each separate procedure.
4. The standard practice procedure must be annually reviewed and must be updated and re-approved in case of modification and in case of no modification, no approval is needed but the review must be documented.
5. The contents and presentation of standard practice procedure of each establishment can be adjusted accordingly but must ensure the requirements of such Guidelines.
Chapter II:
STEPS TO DEVELOP THE STANDARD PRACTICE PROCEDURE
1. Preparation for development plan
- Making list of Standard Practice Procedure is based on the following main grounds:
+ The approved technical list of the units;
+ The work related to the quality management;
+ Classification of work to be done with priority at the laboratory.
- Assignment of person (or group of persons) drafting and person (or group of persons) making review.
- Performance of drafting as guided in Chapter III.
2. Review and modification
- The assigned persons are responsible for review and modification.
- The process of review and modification includes the following steps:
+ Send the draft to the reviewer;
+ Agree upon modified comments;
+ Modify the draft (if needed);
+ Send back the modified draft to the drafting group and request feedback at a definite time;
+ Summarize all comments to complete the Standard Practice Procedure (hold meeting to agree on the contents if necessary).
+ Control the format of Procedure and its contents with checklist before submission to the leadership for approval;
+ The writer and reviewer sign and specify the respective date and month;
Note: This modification process can be done many times until there is an agreement on content and form of the Procedure (the final draft).
3. Approval and issue
- The leadership or the competent person of the unit shall approve the Standard Practice Procedure.
- Announcing the approved Standard Practice Procedure.
- Distributing the copy of Standard Practice Procedure to all relevant staff and departments.
4. Training and use
- The training and use of Standard Practice Procedure for all relevant staff is done from 7 – 10 days after the issue of Standard Practice Procedure and documentation of dossier of persons involved in the training.
- Ensure the strict compliance with the issued Standard Practice Procedure and prepare dossier to record the remedial actions.
5. Modification, addition and storage
- It is necessary to modify or add the contents when there are modifications on regulations or policies of the units or when the Standard Practice Procedure is no longer consistent.
- Keep the original of Standard Practice Procedure as stipulated.
- Recover all issued old versions of Standard Practice Procedure upon issue of alternative procedure and keep it as stipulated.
Chapter III:
GUIDELINES ON DRAFTING OF STANDARD PRACTICE PROCEDURE
I. Requirement for presentation
1. General presentation:
All Standard Practice Procedures are presented in the form as follows:
- Paper size: The Standard Practice Procedures are presented on paper with size A4 (210 mm x 297 mm).
- Type of presentation: with the portrait form of paper size A4. In case the Standard Practice Procedure has tables, the text can be presented with the landscape form of paper.
- Font: Times New Roman
- Encoding: Unicode
- Font size: 13-14
- Top margin: 2cm from the top edge
- Bottom margin: 2cm from the bottom edge
- Right margin: 2cm from the right edge
- Left margin: 3cm from the left edge
- Space between lines: 1.5 lines
2. Specific presentation:
2.1. The first page of Standard Practice Procedure includes the following
2.1.1. Name of body and department, logo (if any);
2.1.2. Name of standard procedure
2.1.3. Code of document: Each Standard Practice Procedure needs to be coded separately and uniquely, may be symbolized with the abbreviation of each department or by classification of Standard Practice Procedure (management procedure and technical procedure), for example:
The culture procedure of microbiology department is symbolized as QTKT-VSNC - 01, in which:
+ QT as abbreviation of procedure;
+ KT as abbreviation of technique;
+ VS as abbreviation of Microbiology Department;
+ NC as abbreviation of culture;
+ 01 is the first Standard Practice Procedure drafted by the microbiology department and numbered 01.
2.1.4. Version (order of issue): It is required to number in ascending order each time of issue of Standard Practice Procedure with Arabic number, for example:
When drafting the new procedure “Material control” in 2014, the first version is symbolized as 1.0. In 2015, there is the first modification, the new version is 1.1 or 2.0.
2.1.5. Effective date: Specify the effective date in the Standard Practice Procedure after it has been issued.
2.1.6. Full name, signature and position of the writers, verifier and approver.
2.1.7. Monitoring the modification of standard practice procedure: Specify information on modification/addition of content of standard practice procedure as guided in the following table:
2.2. From the second page onward of the standard practice procedure, the presentation is done as follows:
The header and the footer will appear in each page of standard practice procedure, these parts include: name of standard practice procedure, code of document, version and ordinal number/total pages, for example:
The header is presented as follows:
The footer is presented as follows:
3. Way to number the levels of heading:
3.1. The main headings has bold Arabic number, ex: 1., 2., ...
3.2. The subordinate headings under the main heading are numbered in ascending order of the main heading as follows:
- Level 1: bold and italic, ex: 1.1., 1.2., ...
- Level 2: regular, ex: 1.1.1., 1.1.2., ...
- The following levels: regular, ex: 1.1.1.1., 1.1.1.2. ...
- The main ideas under the main or subordinate headings have the symbol (-).
- The minor ideas following the main ideas have symbol (+) and followed by (•).
For example
II. Requirements for minimal content of standard practice procedure
1. The technical standard practice procedure includes the following contents:
1) Purpose;
2) Scope of application;
3) Responsibility;
4) Definition, terms and abbreviation;
5) Principle;
6) Equipment and material;
7) Quality control;
8) Safety;
9) Implementation content;
10) Interpretation of result and report;
11) Note (warning);
12) Dossier storage;
13) Relevant documents;
14) References.
2. The management standard practice procedure includes the following contents:
1) Purpose;
2) Scope of application;
3) Responsibility;
4) Definition, terms and abbreviation;
5) Implementation content;
6) Dossier storage;
7) Relevant documents;
8) References
Note: The content of one management standard practice procedure or technical standard practice procedure shall include the above items and specify not applicable for items which do not exist to ensure all standard practice procedures have uniform items.
3. Guidelines on drafting the contents of standard practice procedure
Guidelines on drafting the contents of standard practice procedure
REFERENCES
Vietnamese language
1. Circular No. dated 11/01/2013 of the Minister of Health guiding the implementation of management of laboratory quality at medical facilities. 2. Decision No. 3701/QD-BYT issuing the “National action program on improvement of medical laboratory management capacity from now to 2020”.
3. National standard, 2014, medical laboratory – Requirements for quality and capacity (TCVN 7782:2014-ISO 15189:2012), Hanoi.
4. Circular No. 01/2011/TT-BNV dated 19/01/2011 of the Ministry of Interior guiding the formality and techniques for presentation of administration documents.
English language
1. World Health Organization, 1997. A WHO guide to Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) requirement, Part 1: Standard Operation Procedure and master formulae, p12-111
2. Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute, 2002. Clinical laboratory and technical procedure manuals; Approved guideline 4th Edition. GP2-A4 Appendix A. Suggested Contents of Laboratory Procedures. NCCLS: Wayne, Pennsylvania, p.19.
3. United States Environmental Protection Agency, 2007. Guidance for Preparing Standard Operation, 2007, p 6-60.