Table 1 Quality assurance and improvement monitors.

Pre‐analytic

Specimen fixation

Specimen delivery

Specimen identification

Adequacy of clinical history

Accessioning errors

Analytic

Intra‐operative

Frozen section – permanent section concordance

Final diagnosis

Peer review error rate

Histology and gross room monitors

Block labelling errors

Slide labelling errors

Slide quality

Immunohistochemistry

Frequency of repeat slides

Annual inventory of antibodies and frequency of use

External validation of selected antibodies

Other ancillary study monitors include monitors for FISH, EM, other molecular studies

Post‐analytic

Transcription errors

Verification errors

Report delivery errors

Incomplete reports

Diagnostic finding correlation with ancillary studies (IHC, EM, FISH)

Turnaround time (TAT)

Frozen section

Biopsy

Large specimen

Preliminary and final necropsy reports

Clinician satisfaction and/or complaints

Overall satisfaction

Diagnostic accuracy

Frozen section timeliness and accuracy

Report timeliness

Report completeness

Pathologist availability

Recent changes

EM, electron microscopy; FISH, fluorescent in situ hybridisation; IHC, immunohistochemistry.