[Team Medical Care Involving Biomedical Laboratory Scientists].

As medical care becomes'more advanced and complex, increasing importance is being attached to the im- plementation of team medical care that provides appropriate care while making use of the advances, mutually cooperating, and supplementing the high-level specializations of various branches of medicine in order to provide safe care with peace of mind. Planned team medical care is demanded in this era, and the Japanese Association of Medical Technologists is developing various projects as well as promoting the participation of biomedical laboratory scientists in team medical care. [Review].

[ISO 15189, Up-To-Date Information and Prospective View].

"Accreditation Activities for Medical Laboratories in Japan" Audits for transition to ISO 15189:2012 continue to progress. Besides the continual increase of accreditations for medical laboratory testing and pathological examinations, preparations for the addition of physiological testing to the scope of accreditation have finally been completed. As a part of the revision to Japan's Medical Service Act, the external evaluation of medical laboratories is now a requirement to approve clinical trial core hospitals.

[Update to ISO 15189:2012, and future prospects].

ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) is a worldwide federation of national standard bodies (ISO member bodies). The work of preparing international standards is normally carried out through ISO technical committees. ISO 15189 was prepared by Technical Committee ISO/TC 212, clinical laboratory testing, and in vitro diagnostic test systems.

[Current status of ISO 15189 accreditation system].

The Japan Accreditation Board (JAB) mainly involves the ISO 15189 accreditation system with support from the Japanese Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards (JCCLS). The currently available procedure to obtain accreditation is as below. Firstly, it is necessary for applicants to prepare ISO 15189 and related documents in each laboratory.