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DAVID CLAWSON is senior manager, technical and quality, for AIHA PAT Programs.
ANGELA OLER is executive director of AIHA PAT Programs.
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Why Proficiency Testing Matters
BY DAVID CLAWSON AND ANGELA OLER
As environmental and occupational health and safety professionals, you rely on accurate laboratory analysis to detect workplace hazards and quantify worker exposures. Your decisions, based on the data you receive from testing laboratories, directly impact worker health and safety. Proficiency testing (PT) programs, like those offered by AIHA PAT Programs, help ensure the quality of the sampling data you receive. Laboratories participate by analyzing PT samples and submitting their results. PT providers assess a lab’s accuracy and precision by comparing these results to established reference values. This assessment is available to the lab’s customers upon request.
The reports delivered by AIHA PAT Programs detail a laboratory’s performance history in PT studies. By requesting your lab’s PAT report, you can see how their analytical capabilities compare to other labs, gaining valuable insights you wouldn’t have otherwise. This information helps you confidently make critical decisions with the assurance that the data guiding you is reliable.
READING A PAT REPORT
Your first step in accessing a PAT report is to confirm that your laboratory partner is enrolled by visiting our participant directory toolkit. The toolkit also explains how to read a PAT report.
PAT reports contain two tables: the first displays results for each sample in the current round of testing, and the second summarizes the lab’s overall performance. The sample results table identifies the contaminant and compares the amount of analyte that the lab found with the amount found by top-performing labs. It also specifies the upper and lower limits of the acceptable range and provides a rating of acceptable, unacceptable, or excused for each sample. In the overall performance table, the report shows the lab’s score for each round of testing conducted for that contaminant, identifies whether the lab passed or failed that round, and provides an overall score for three rounds of testing.
By requesting your lab’s PAT report, you can see how their analytical capabilities compare to other labs, gaining valuable insights you wouldn’t have otherwise.
SECURING ACCURACY
In today’s competitive landscape, companies rely on accurate data to make informed decisions. This is especially true when outsourcing critical testing services. Procurement departments play a vital role in selecting reliable laboratories, ensuring the validity of test results that impact everything from air quality to worker safety. The PAT report empowers procurement teams to make informed choices. By incorporating PAT reports into the laboratory selection process, procurement departments, business owners, and independent contractors gain a powerful tool to ensure data integrity and mitigate risk.
Selecting the right laboratory is crucial. PAT reports offer an objective measure of a laboratory’s performance and tangible evidence of a laboratory’s ability to produce accurate results. This minimizes the risk of receiving unreliable data that could negatively impact operational decisions, worker safety, and even organizational liability. In addition, accurate testing translates into cost savings as inaccurate results can lead to expensive re-testing, delays, and rework.
POWERING LABORATORY PERFORMANCE
For more than 40 years, AIHA PAT Programs has been a leading provider of proficiency testing programs designed to assess analytical capability. Through rigorous, independent evaluations, AIHA PAT Programs provides a snapshot of performance to identify areas for improvement.
AIHA PAT Programs recently launched two new programs that provide frequent samples on method-specific media at OEHS-relevant sample loading. The airborne particulates program utilizes 37-mm, 5-µm PVC filter media for methods NIOSH 0500, NIOSH 0600, or NIOSH 5000, while the mercury program, which began in April 2024, provides relevant samples using SKC 226-17-1A solid sorbent tubes for methods NIOSH 6009 and OSHA ID-140. To learn more about these programs, visit the AIHA PAT Programs website.