
In simple terms, being CAP (College of American Pathologists) accredited ensures your test results are meeting or exceeding industry standards for clinical laboratory testing.
The Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988 (CLIA) are federal regulations for United States based clinical laboratories to provide industry standards for testing of human samples for diagnostic purposes. Three federal agencies are responsible for ensuring compliance of laboratories to CLIA: the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Center for Medicaid Services (CMS), and the Center for Disease Control (CDC). Having a CLIA certificate demonstrates that Dominion Pathology Associates and Quest Diagnostics meet the federal regulations for clinical diagnostic testing, ensuring quality and safety in the laboratory and laboratory results.
Further, a laboratory can pursue a higher level of quality by becoming accredited by a recognized accreditation agency. The College of American Pathologists (CAP) is such an agency. The CAP releases its own requirements building upon CLIA ’88 regulations. Compliance is assessed by a peer group site inspection every two years. Meeting these criteria ensures that industry specific standards for laboratory operation are upheld in the lab. These requirements can also point out areas for improvement in order to reach the highest level of quality. Being able to show our clients that Dominion Pathology Associates and Quest Diagnostics have maintained CAP accreditation for years, only attests to our commitment to laboratory quality.