Tulsa office of Cancer Care 2nd in nation to complete survey

The Tulsa physician office laboratory of Cancer Care Associates, located at the Saint Francis Hospital campus, is the second in the nation to complete the Performance Based Survey.

This new method of renewing accreditation, vs. on-site surveys, may only be used every other survey cycle. Routine on-site surveys occur at a minimum of every four years.

To qualify for the survey program, a laboratory must receive either a perfect or near perfect score on the lab's last survey, have no change of ownership or director within the last two years, participate in acceptable proficiency testing with scores of 80 percent or higher, and have been at least 15 months since the lab's last on-site survey. Specific areas studied in the self-assessment program, offered by the Commission on Office Laboratory Accreditation (COLA), include personnel changes, quality control and maintenance, and calibration on instruments. Documentation is reviewed to determine if the lab has continued the performance level demonstrated during its last survey. Cancer Care is among the top 5 percent of the 7,500 physician office labs enrolled in COLA that met the criteria to participate in the survey program. The Tulsa lab, a private physician practice providing diagnosis and treatment services in adult medical oncology and hematology, had earned a perfect score on its last COLA on-site accreditation survey in February 1995. "We have worked very hard to design efficient laboratories that operate with the patients' best interest in mind," said Zach Varughese, Cancer Care's Tulsa laboratory manager and director of support services for operations statewide. He also is founder and president of the National Association of Physician Office Laboratories. Cancer Care's two Oklahoma City labs, at Baptist Medical Center and Mercy Health Center, also earned perfect on-site accreditation scores.

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