Ontario Lab Accreditation

Somewhat miraculously, we survived the week-long QMPLS Ont. Lab. Accreditation visit last week. Of the 550 odd requirements, we ended-up with 6 major non-compliances and 63 minor non-compliances at the Civic Campus, slightly fewer at the General Campus and even fewer at the Riverside Campus. As many of you in Ontario already know, we now have 90 days to eliminated the majors and to show, at the least, a plan to eliminate the minors, in order to attain a 5-year accreditation before we have to endure another dose of regulatory bureucratic BS.
I guess the accreditors can't help themselves but to eventually become somewhat obsessive; it's the nature of the beast. We shouldn't fault them I suppose. Funny though, of the 27 Pathologists at The Ottawa Hospital, I don't know of one who would ever voluntarily choose to become an OLA Assessor. They, like me, are there to provide the best quality patient care that they can to each and every patient whose specimen is sent to our division. Different strokes for different folks I guess. It's difficult to not 'shoot the messanger' though.
I have no doubt that we will satisfy OLA and will attain a 5-year accreditation, but wow, what a process! I'm sure I have a lot more grey hair now than a few months ago.
I wish anyone who is preparing for an upcoming OLA assessment the best of luck. Don't fool yourself into thinking that you'll be perfect. It's not possible. Just do your best and deal with the hopefully few non-comformances afterwards.
More on OLA later.