Programme Overview
The National Histopathology Quality Improvement Programme gives patients greater confidence in the diagnosis of illnesses, regardless of whether they are tested at a large or small hospital, either public or private.
The central aim of the programme is to ensure enhanced patient care and patient safety with timely, accurate and complete pathology diagnoses and reports.
Launched by the Faculty of Pathology in 2009, the programme aims to:
- improve patient care by minimising diagnostic errors in histopathology
- develop a standardised national quality improvement system for histopathology
- enable individual laboratories to review their performance against national targets
- identify good practice and areas requiring improvement and share findings with participating laboratories, and
- provide evidence-based assurance to the public of the quality of Irish diagnostic services
- improve communication between participating institutions.
Thanks to the programme, Ireland is the first country in the world to be able to report on national metrics in histopathology.