In many industries, companies seek to improve their manufacturing and product development and have to go through many regulatory reforms to do so. They require them to adopt quality systems standards which reduce risk.

Clinical laboratories don’t find themselves often in front of similar legal challenges because patients are required to give written consent, and acknowledge that their therapy involves a certain level of clinical risk. Still, risk management in a laboratory environment has become necessary due to the evolution of quality systems requirements. For best risk management in laboratories, consider these practices:

Risk Identification

Testing and quality activities conducted in laboratories have documented vulnerabilities. The most common causes of error are in the pre-preanalytical and post-analytical phases of the testing process.

These include possible errors with order entries, various sample collection errors and inappropriate handling or storage, as well as incorrect interpretation or delayed reaction to laboratory reporting. Laboratories can sometimes struggle to implement even the subtlest changes in policy or practice because it makes the overall performance prone to failures. It’s essential to identify risks in a lab’s testing process and work on preventing them. Laboratories usually deal with this through a traditionally-oriented QC approach, but that’s not always effective.

Quality Management System for Laboratories

Laboratories aren’t free from having to address all aspects of a corporate quality management system. It’s necessary for them to maintain standard operating procedures and implement control measures that can identify potential risks to the system.

ISO 15189 guides laboratories when it comes to technical and quality requirements. Laboratories must be able to record performance data and audit the results of the system, among other things. Correction and prevention of any issues that might arise from using closed-loop processes to document procedures are also paramount.

Risk Management Plan Definition

A risk management plan is crucial for the lab’s quality management plan. Each laboratory can incorporate technical requirements for testing processes into its quality management system differently. Therefore, it’s important to understand how these work to assess the effectiveness of a laboratory approach to risk management. The litmus test for this is the lab’s ability to match its planned objectives to its actual activities. If a laboratory’s execution of its TTP, IQCP or QC plan employs risk-based thinking, that’s a useful approach.

Risk Assessment and Management

In assessing and managing risk, laboratories need to keep track of all the various testing scenarios and outcomes. Once labs can understand their planning and confirm it, they’ll know which measures they need to take to deal with an unwanted result. A risk-management solution that integrates with the lab’s existing QMS could be quite useful. With it, labs could capture, communicate and address all their risk-related documentation and activities. Learning to prevent risk issues is essential. Laboratories need to be able to track risk management issues and manage their risk reporting system efficiently.

Empower your lab staff to make smarter and safer risk-related decisions by using the risk-management software. A standardized system that can fit your unique requirements can be valuable for all aspects of a laboratory’s testing and quality management plan.

Why do people cringe at the very thought of compliance and change? Perhaps it’s because compliance means having to behave according to someone else’s command, and it’s our natural reflex to be resistant to being controlled, and skeptical of change.

But what if our reluctance to change was causing our organizations to lose massive amounts of money due to inadequacies caused by outdated processes?

The loss of revenue that occurs when document control systems are inefficient can be significant, and can cost manufacturers millions of dollars. These inefficiencies can be traced to the use of paper/hybrid-electronic systems which partially involve a manual approach or the combination of both digital and paper files. As with any manual approach, this was prone to error which resulted in delays.

And for this reason, FDA-regulated and ISO-certified companies mandated with a document change control system have shifted to automated digitized solutions which eliminate the laborious and time-consuming manual management of documents.

Here are the main benefits of an automated digitized solution for document control and how it helps ensure companies meet ISO and FDA regulations:

Easy Creation of Various Types of Documents

An automated digitized solution simplifies document creation. Different document types mean handling each document differently and may consist of separate approvers and workflows. An automated solution simplifies the creation and approval of documents, assigning the correct workflow based on each document's unique routing.

Faster Review and Approval

It’s up to the system to route documents to be reviewed by the relevant employees, ensuring final approval is received on all documents before they are used and distributed. Automated digitized solutions

have intelligent business rules that make room for deviations in the process when necessary.

Employee Training Integration

When the Training Management system is integrated with a document control system, companies can easily define which employee needs training on each document. The systems updates training records, allows self-training, and automatically updates employee status when training has been completed.

Promotes Collaboration Through Visible Reporting

When the reporting system is integrated with good document control, employees can quickly and effectively look at data to run the necessary reports. Visibility allows employees to look at data and keep business processes consistent and controlled.

Keep Data Secure Through Intuitive Filtering

A centralized system doesn’t mean that all users should be granted access. For security reasons, employees should only have the appropriate access to documents needed for them to approve, review, and make any necessary changes. A document control system allows you to filter and secure data thus limiting visibility data to only what is relevant to each user.

In conclusion, document control systems are put in place to ensure manufacturers are building products that are reliable and safe. ISO and FDA regulations are enforced to ensure that both process and documentation follow pre-approved methods.

For a company to thrive, it needs to recognize that compliance is a necessary tool that will give it a competitive edge. Achieving and maintaining compliance ultimately leads to efficiency and better output. Having an automated digitized solution helps you achieve all that by eliminating manual processes that are prone to error, giving your ability to filter access, automate redundant processes, and ensuring the correct routing and workflows.