From AABB Weekly, May 5, 2017
AABB Accreditation to Accept IQCP
Beginning Oct. 1, facilities that use AABB as their provider under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988 (CLIA) will be able to use an individualized quality control plan (IQCP) for limited testing of bacteriology. This is a change in AABB’s accreditation practice regarding the requirements under CLIA, for which AABB has been granted deemed status. Beginning in October, facilities that are accredited by AABB under CLIA that use either the BacT/Alert or Verax system for bacterial contamination testing may use an IQCP or continue to follow the quality control requirements set forth in the Code of Federal Regulations. An IQCP will only be accepted for this limited testing in the specialty of bacteriology. An IQCP will not be accepted for any other specialty for which AABB has been granted deemed status. Additional information about IQCP is available from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
And there was this additional information in the AABB News June 2017
Anne Chenoweth, MBA, MT(ASCP)CM, CQA(ASQ), senior director of accreditation and quality at AABB, told “AABB News” that this change will be beneficial for those facilities that are affected. “Once the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services [CMS] removed the CLSI guidance from their interpretative guidelines, AABB realized that the burden for quality control of culture bottles would fall to the facility,” Chenoweth said. “We worked with CMS to ensure that we could recognize IQCP for limited use in bacteriology. IQCP is not required, but this will give facilities that use AABB as their CLIA provider a choice for bacteriology quality control.”