It is impossible to overestimate the importance of accreditation in the healthcare field.
Though every healthcare company creates internal operational standards, accreditation by a recognised authority body assures that your organisation meets applicable national and international quality and safety requirements. Patients entering the health-care system, whether it’s a hospital, medical clinic, or laboratory, need to know that they’ll get safe, effective, and up-to-date care. Accreditation gives you that assurance.
NATA (National Association of Testing Authorities), Australia’s foremost national accrediting authority, has been providing world-class evaluation, accreditation, and training services to laboratories and technical facilities across Australia for the past 75 years. The Australian Commonwealth and State/Territory governments saw a need for an authoritative body whose primary goal was to stimulate the improvement of testing services, which were essential to support Australia’s post-World War II recovery and development. This was to be accomplished by formally accrediting competent testing laboratories through a peer review procedure. As a result, during the mid-1980s, the Australian government had asked NATA to set up a method for accrediting competent pathology laboratories. Today, NATA empowers businesses by providing them all the resources they need to succeed.
Accreditation Services that are World-Class, Innovative, and Flexible. Regular, planned on-site inspections by teams comprised of experts in the activities done by the facility being reviewed are part of NATA’s formal recognition and accreditation services. Pathology laboratories, workplace drug testing laboratories, medical imaging practises, sleep problem treatments, and biobanks are among the establishments that NATA accredits in the healthcare industry. NATA has played a critical role in assisting Australian industries to evolve and improve, assisting industry and government to grow and modernise the economy, providing confidence in everyday products and services for the Australian community, and assisting trade in competitive global markets over the years.
Providing assistance to testing facilities as they evolve and improve
NATA’s success is also due to its ideology, which is based on a basic aim that hasn’t changed in 75 years: to foster progress in Australia’s testing services. “As a result of a conflict of interest, NATA is unable to provide consultation services.” So we underpin improvement through accreditation of testing facilities that meet international standards of best practise and using our accreditation process, and in particular, the technical assessors on our assessment teams to foster continuous improvement through their professional interactions during on-site assessments,” asserts Jennifer Evans, the CEO of NATA.
It also promotes progress by offering training courses on the international standards that accredited facilities must adhere to, as well as other initiatives.
Supporting the Industry and Clients in Time of Crisis
NATA has always been willing to take on new challenges. Even during the Covid-19 outbreak, it faced the issues head-on and switched from on-site to’remote’ examinations using platforms like Zoom and Teams, as well as webcams and document sharing systems. “It was critical for NATA to retain the rigour of our certification processes across all of our activities, not just healthcare-related activities, in order for stakeholders and customers to continue to trust recognised facilities’ competence and capabilities.” “The goal was to mimic ‘virtually’ what we would accomplish on-site,” Jennifer explains.
“NATA was able to use the goodwill we have with our accredited facilities, and especially with our technical assessors, to facilitate our processes.”
Continues to Expand Into New Accreditation Fields
The organisation plans to continue looking for new accreditation opportunities in the future. Currently, its newest area of biobanking gives accreditation to facilities that store and manage material and data used in research, including medical research, in accordance with the international standard ISO 20387.
Using the lessons learnt from the epidemic, NATA is also attempting to enhance its accreditation processes. “It’s critical that the process stays current and isn’t overly demanding without sacrificing rigour or stakeholder trust.” Regulators and businesses will continue to use accreditation as a risk mitigation tool. It gives users of testing services confidence that they are competent and that the results they provide are dependable and repeatable
