Quality Process Before Testing

Pathology is the scientific study of the nature and course of disease through microscopic analysis of body tissues and cells. It is the medical specialty that provides a scientific foundation for medical practice.

The Department of Pathology at PAMF offers comprehensive services in surgical pathology, cytology and fine-needle consultation. Our staff includes board-certified pathologists, cytotechnologists, histology technicians, laboratory assistants and administrative support staff members. The department process and diagnose cell and tissue specimens for all PAMF clinic locations, as well as the Surgecenter and Menlo Park Surgical Hospital.

Quality Care -- Quality Testing -- Quality Process

Quality care requires quality testing. Physicians use laboratory test results to determine the course of treatment or follow-up for their patients.

This requires two things:

1. That the results are accurate.
2. That they are reported on the correct patient.

To assure the accuracy of pathology and cytology reports, the pathology laboratory at PAMF incorporates the following "quality process" throughout the testing.

• Specimens are properly identified


• Specimen are properly submitted

Before tissue or cell specimens can be microscopically evaluated, they must be properly identified and submitted by the clinician that collected the specimen. The laboratory assistants verify that the specimen has been properly identified and submitted before accepting the specimen for testing.


Lab Assistant, Valerie Markushevich, checks a specimen to see if it is properly labeled.

• Proper labeling of specimens by laboratory personnel
• Accurate data entry

Each specimen receives a unique accession number after it has been accepted for testing by the laboratory.



Lab Assistant, Valerie Markushevich, gives the specimen a unique accession number.



Lab Assistant, Maira Larios, labels a slide with the patient name and specimen accession number.

This number follows the specimen throughout the testing process. To ensure that this number is accurate, both the patients' name and accession number are checked at various steps during the testing process to ensure the identity of the patient.



Lab Assistant, Valerie Markushevich, checks to see that the specimen containers and the tissue cassettes have been properly labeled.



Lab Assistant, Philip Thomas, verifies the name and accession number of the specimen before labeling the slide for specimen processing.

The information on the test requisition is important to the testing process and must be accurately entered into the computer. The accuracy of the information entered into the computer is checked at the time of data entry by the support staff and again before microscopic evaluation by the cytotechnologists and pathologists.



Support Staff, Kim Strickland, enters the data on the test requisition into the pathology computer system.

The equipment used to process pathology and cytology specimens is maintained regularly to ensure specimen integrity and quality of the preparation.

• Regular stain maintenance


• Daily stain checks

Histology technician, Bea Pollert, performs routine maintenance on one of the many pieces of equipment in the pathology laboratory.

All tissue and cell samples require special stains for microscopic evaluation. Good staining is critical for accurate evaluation and interpretation. To ensure the quality of the stain, the staining solutions are maintained on a regular basis and control slides are stained and checked by the technical staff before the test slides are stained. If there are problems with the stain, the problems are corrected before the test slides are stained.