Quality Improvement of the Point of Care Blood Gas Testing in Siriraj Hospital after Using ISO 22870: Technical Requirements

Abstract

Objective: To compare the differences in the quality of Point of Care (POC) blood gas testing before and afterimplementation of the technical requirements of ISO 22870Methods: This is a descriptive study which collected data from nurses and other medical personnel involved in theanalysis of blood gas in each POC site. The steps used in quality improvement consisted of six processeswhich included: 1) finding opportunities for improvement, 2) establishing Key Performance Indicators (KPI),3) collecting data from current operation conditions, 4) determining alternative process, 5) developingimplementation strategy, and 6) summarizing the results.Results: the results of the improvement were reflected by the KPIs which consisted of the percentage of personnelwho obtained training in arterial blood gas analysis and percentage of personnel who passed examination aftertraining which were 100%, the frequency of instrument calibration increased to 12 times per year, 2 sets ofwork instructions created, percentage of recorded internal quality control which was 98.8% and results ofInternal Quality Control (IQC) which had coefficient of variation (CV) less than 10% were 188 out of 198data which was 95.0%Conclusion: After implementation of the quality improvement process, all KPIs change indicated clear improvement.Keywords: quality improvement, point of care, blood gas analysis, international standard