The pacific pathology training centre external quality assessment programme

The Pacific Pathology Training Centre (PPTC) external quality assessment programme (PPTC-EQAP) commenced in 1985 as an evaluation process for students attending residential courses. This was enhanced when the PPTC was conferred Collaborating Centre status by the World Health Organization and is now the main EQA provider to the laboratories in the Pacific region. The PPTC accommodates seven medical laboratory science disciplines within its EQA programme, and these include serology, blood bank, microbiology, haematology, biochemistry, anatomical pathology, and molecular SARS-CoV-2. Samples for each survey are dispatched from Wellington, in lyophilised form or as a whole specimen, following the IATA shipping of biological substance guidelines. All disciplines are delivered over three cycles except for biochemistry, which consists of two cycles with four analyses. The PPTC contracts consultants (registered New Zealand Medical Laboratory Scientists and a Pathologist) who are specialists in their selected disciplines for analysis and reporting of the results. <br /><br /> Participating laboratories are given five weeks to process the samples and return their results to the centre. Interim reports are provided a week after the due date for all programmes. A final report compiled by the appropriate PPTC consultant is sent to each participating laboratory for the specific discipline that the laboratory has participated in and each report sent details the laboratory's score for the respective cycle, their accumulated score for the previous cycle in that discipline, and the average score for all participating laboratories. This year (2021) there are 86 laboratories from 22 countries participating in all or part of the PPTC EQA programme. The New Zealand Government, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (NZ-MFAT), provides funding to the PPTC to deliver the EQA programme at no cost to 31 laboratories in 17 countries, while the rest of the laboratories are privately enrolled through their own funding or through donor partner funding. The PPTC provides a free external quality assurance programme for government-owned and operated medical laboratories in the South Pacific region