Methods of quality control and quality assurance for highway bridge inspection in the United States

Author(s):  
G Washer
2007 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 283-288
Author(s):  
Morrie Craig ◽  
G. Rottinghaus ◽  
K. Walker ◽  
E. Ishikuro

Quality assurance and quality control is the foundation of any diagnostic test. The two laboratories in the United States that use HPLC to quantitate endophyte toxins in tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea) and perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne) are Oregon State University (OSU) and University of Missouri (MU). Japan, the major importer of grass straw has six new laboratories that will test agricultural imports for endophyte toxins. A quality assurance program was set up between the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture and the State of Oregon. The latter includes both OSU and the MU. All units are using an accurate crystalline standard and have exchanged "check" samples among themselves. To date OSU and MU have values that differ by 10%. OSU has identified a contaminating and coeluting peak as the cause of the differences. Both laboratories are changing to a Gemini column to rectify the differences. Japanese laboratories are in the process of evaluating their split check samples. Keywords: quality assurance, quality control, endophyte, tall fescue, perennial ryegrass


1966 ◽  
Vol 05 (02) ◽  
pp. 67-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. I. Lourie ◽  
W. Haenszeland

Quality control of data collected in the United States by the Cancer End Results Program utilizing punchcards prepared by participating registries in accordance with a Uniform Punchcard Code is discussed. Existing arrangements decentralize responsibility for editing and related data processing to the local registries with centralization of tabulating and statistical services in the End Results Section, National Cancer Institute. The most recent deck of punchcards represented over 600,000 cancer patients; approximately 50,000 newly diagnosed cases are added annually.Mechanical editing and inspection of punchcards and field audits are the principal tools for quality control. Mechanical editing of the punchcards includes testing for blank entries and detection of in-admissable or inconsistent codes. Highly improbable codes are subjected to special scrutiny. Field audits include the drawing of a 1-10 percent random sample of punchcards submitted by a registry; the charts are .then reabstracted and recoded by a NCI staff member and differences between the punchcard and the results of independent review are noted.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 90 (6) ◽  
pp. 959-965
Author(s):  
Terri A. Slagle ◽  
Jeffrey B. Gould

The purpose of this national survey was to define the extent and features of database use by 445 tertiary level neonatal intensive care nurseries in the United States. Of the 305 centers responding to our survey, 78% had a database in use in 1989 and 15% planned to develop one in the future. Nurseries varied remarkably in the volume of data collected, the amount of time devoted to completing data collection forms, and the personnel involved in data collection. Although data were used primarily for statistical reports (93% of nurseries), quality assurance (73%) and research activities (61%) were also enhanced by database information. Neonatal databases were used to generate reports for the permanent medical record in 38% of centers. Satisfaction with the database was dependent on how useful the database information was to centers which collected and actually used a large volume of information. Overall, nurseries expressed a high degree of confidence in the data they collected, and 65% felt their neonatal database information could be used directly in publication of research. It was disturbing that accuracy of data was not monitored formally by the majority of nurseries. Only 27% of centers followed a routine schedule of data quality assurance, and only 53% had built in error messages for data entry. We caution all who receive database information in the form of morbidity and mortality statistics, clinical reports on patients cared for in neonatal units, and published manuscripts to be attentive to the quality of the data they consume. We feel that future database design efforts need to better address data quality control. Our findings stress the importance and need for immediate efforts to better address database quality control.


Author(s):  
Lisa Jean Moore

In 1964, Limulus amoebocyte lysate (LAL), developed from horseshoe crab blood, was discovered as an effective pryogen test. Limulus blood reacts to endotoxins by forming a gel. The LAL test, constructed from horseshoe crab amoebocytes, has become the standard test in the United States, Europe, and Asia to test pharmaceutical injectables and pharmaceutical insertables for biomedical and veterinary uses. Without it, endotoxins could contaminate all of our laboratory studies, our bodies, and other nonhuman animal bodies. We’ve made horseshoe crabs indispensable to our human and veterinary biomedicine. We need their blood, and as health care demand grows, we will need more and more. I explain how blood donations are detrimental to the crabs. Furthermore, I explain how the LAL test is a not lifesaving test but is instead used for quality control. Even with all of this information and the viability of a synthetic alternative, the bureaucracy surrounding the procedure for switching to the synthetic alternative will prevent the switch from happening until most of the crabs have died. They are not valued like humans are; they are instead valued for their use to humans and will be valued that way until they are used up.


2021 ◽  
pp. 48-76
Author(s):  
Richard Schweid

This chapter begins by assessing the psychological and emotional demands of home care work. It then explains how home care, like other aspects of health care in the United States, is a marketplace commodity. Because need is so great, this commodification of home health care has proved tremendously profitable to the agencies serving as middlemen. In theory, these agencies impose a certain quality control, carefully screening and training the aides they send out to work. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Those agencies that work on a strictly private-pay basis and do not accept Medicaid clients are not subject to the federal regulations and are not legally required to provide aides with any training whatsoever. Moreover, the high cost of using agencies has generated a vast gray market for aides who work freelance and privately, without working for an agency or under any supervision other than that of the client and the client's family.


1976 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dianne Miller Wolman

The quality of health care is becoming an issue of increasing public importance in both England and the United States. As the government role in providing health care grows and citizen demands increase, the effective and efficient use of health care resources and their equitable distribution become crucial. Although government responsibilities, particularly for health care, differ in both countries, as do traditions of quality control, cross-national comparisons are nonetheless useful. An examination of the role of the new English community medicine specialist and his potential for quality control may indicate what tools and powers should be introduced into a health planning and quality control system in the United States. The study concludes that at the district level of the National Health Service, where the basic planning, monitoring, and evaluation of services are to take place, the District Community Physician has very limited tools to carry out his quality control function. Although he has a formal position in the unified decision-making structure, it is unlikely that he will be able to effect any substantial reallocation of resources without the voluntary support and cooperation of the consultants, general practitioners, and other health providers.


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