Pine Bluff Arsenal's Occupational Health Clinic laboratory has received accreditation by the Commission of Laboratory Accreditation or COLA, a national health care accreditation association.
COLA is a non-profit, physician-directed organization that promotes quality and excellence in medicine and patient care. The organization accredits nearly 8,000 medical labs and provides these labs with programs of education, consultation and accreditation. The organization is approved by the federal government and sponsored by the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Medical Association and the American College of Physicians-American Society of Internal Medicine.
According to Val Neal, PBA medical technologist and member of the American Society for Clinical Pathology, an on-site inspection for the accreditation was done during March. "We are inspected every two years. This is my third year to go through the process," she said.
During the accreditation process, one of the inspectors summed up the lab as "one of the best places I have inspected," according to an email forwarded to Neal.
"I think Val does a marvelous job, and in the last three years I have been here, this is the department of the clinic that has received the largest amount of praise and endorsement," said Lt.
Col. Diego Gonzalez, Arsenal medical officer. "She follows all the protocol and requirements, and it really is her department. Whenever it comes down to discrepancies in results, her results are usually the ones used because of her quality control in the lab."
Gonzalez said that he wished more departments worked that way the lab did.
The clinic's lab deals primarily with surveillance testing for specific job descriptions on the Arsenal. "Each surveillance group requires a different set of testing depending on their jobs," said Gonzalez. "Since the chemical demilitarization mission has ended, the testing has changed slightly, but we are still continuing specific chemical testing."
Neal said she does the same thing; the numbers are just lower now. "I do the same things I have always done. I have to have everything up to the same levels and accuracy," she said.
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