[Quality control survey implemented by Japan Medical Association and standardization of external quality assessment in Japan].

International Final Draft on quality management of medical laboratory by International Organization for Standardization (ISO) will be published soon. According to this draft, the accreditation of the laboratories should be given by the third party on the basis of objective matter, and the external quality control survey results is thought to be the most important indices for the accreditation. Although variety of external quality control surveys are now implementing in Japan, most of those surveys are done only once a year. Therefore, we could not evaluate the laboratories performance by any of those survey results. If those quality control surveys are done with the standardized system, summative results from different survey could give us fair evaluation on each participating laboratories. Japan Medical Association (JMA) is now making final draft on standardized method for quality assessment system with the consensus between the JMA, Japanese Society of Laboratory Medicine (JSLM, former Japan Society of Clinical Pathology), Japanese Association of Laboratory Medical Technologists (JALMT) and Japan Registered Clinical Laboratories Association (JRCLA). When this quality assessment system actually starts, Japanese people may receive great benefit from the laboratory tests.