Category Archive: Article

As part of the February 2017 Clinical Microbiology survey, CMPT sent its first Video Challenge (VC164). CMPT has been using its Paper Challenge as a way to evaluate extra-analytical processes in the total laboratory testing process. This year, CMPT introduced…

The BC Patient Safety & Quality Council held its annual meeting, 2017 quality Forum on March 1-3 in Vancouver, BC. We had the opportunity to attend a few presentations. This year, the focus was greatly on innovation to achieve improvement. The…

The World Health Organization (WHO) released a list of antibiotic-resistant priority pathogens that agency officials believe are the greatest threat to human health and should be the target of research and development for the development of new antimicrobial agents. On…

by Robert Rennie The importance of capturing the most appropriate clinical breakpoints for antimicrobial susceptibility cannot be overstated. Antimicrobial resistance has become a major consideration for clinicians and laboratorians alike. It is important that susceptibility breakpoints that are established are…

At CMPT, we take a number of measures to ensure that laboratories understand that we take our responsibility for proficiency testing (also known as External Quality Assessment) as both core and critical: We ensure that we maintain our quality and…

In December 3-8, 2016, Dr. Noble got the opportunity to visit the African Society for Laboratory Medicine (ASLM) conference in Cape Town, South Africa.  ASLM was first created only 5 years ago, and hosts a conference every 3 years. In…

Quinolones are a class of antibiotic with broad-spectrum antibacterial activity. They are well absorbed orally and have good tissue penetration making them popular agents for the treatment of a wide variety of infections. They are synthetic agents rather than natural…

A Biosecurity Plan must be developed by any facility that handles or stores human or animal pathogens or toxins as these pose a risk to personnel, the community, and the environment. “The purpose of a biosecurity program is to prevent…

According to the HPTA, any individual working or having access to prescribed human pathogens and toxins or Security Sensitive Biological Agents (SSBAs) must have an HPTA Security Clearance. An HPTA Security Clearance is conducted by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police…