The Board of Certification helps you advance your career.

IMPORTANT NOTICE OF ASCP WEBSITE OUTAGE:
The ASCP website will not be accessible for viewing or transactions of any kind beginning Thursday, April 11, 11:30 pm (Central Time) for approximately 3 days due to a process upgrade. During this time, the online exam application, verification of certification and store transactions will not be available to users. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience.
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Whether you are a medical laboratory scientist, medical laboratory technician, or other type of lab professional, the ASCP Board of Certification (BOC) is here to help you maintain your certification and excel in your career!

As the oldest and largest certification agency for laboratory professionals, the BOC has certified more than 475,000 individuals since it was established and has become the gold standard for certification of clinical laboratory personnel. ASCP’s 2010 Wage Survey of U.S. Clinical Laboratories found that certified laboratory professionals earn up to 14 percent more than their non-certified counterparts.

To read more about the BOC, click here

For a list of shortcuts/aliases to current BOC Web pages, click here.

Troubleshooting Day-to-Day Problems in an Existing LIS

Competency in laboratory informatics must be demonstrated through completion of the project as defined in each item listed. The purpose of this qualification is to assess the competency of the examinee in the technical application of relevant laboratory informatics workflow. The examinee will be required to demonstrate the following competencies for LI qualification:

Provide a diagram of your LI architecture to include all components that make up your LI system and network configuration, to include servers, interfaces, analyzers, workstations, etc.

Describe in detail (including a diagram) your LIS components showing the direction of data transfer, and what is being transferred.

Describe the impact of each of the six (6) problems listed below on laboratory operations, patient care and costs

For each of the six (6) problems, produce a troubleshooting algorithm (text format, which may include a diagram) including four (4) reasons and possible solutions for each reason.

Describe one solution for each of the six (6) problems that will be most cost effective and least disruptive to patient care and explain why.

Outline a strategy to avoid each of the six (6) problems in the future.

LIS Troubleshooting problems (cases):

ADT Functions—Laboratory personnel are unable to enter orders in the LIS on a particular patient. The patient was registered in the hospital system.

Printing Jobs—Phlebotomy labels for hospital morning collection did not print at their usual, designated time.

Medical Device Interfaces—A chemistry test has been ordered on a patient. The test does not appear on the appropriate worksheet/work cue after 30 minutes.

System backup—Database backup indicates that database backup did not run to completion.

Databases—A new test has been defined in the test database. A test order has been placed in the LIS to verify that the new test is working properly. Orders do not print from the label printer.

You are on call for LIS support. A portion of the hospital network goes down, taking down the laboratory, hospital switchboard and pharmacy. The network on call person investigates and says that it will be the following morning at 7am before network personnel will be available to fix this problem.