5 Quality procedures in AST

As well as providing results to guide antimicrobial prescribing, microbiology laboratories act as ‘data collectors’ in local AMR surveillance processes and have a critical role in ensuring that the data is accurate, reliable, valid and comparable. Whilst AST should reliably report the susceptibility of a bacterial pathogen to a given antibiotic, the results of these tests can be affected by many factors. To minimise variability, laboratories use various quality procedures that identify and correct or reduce errors. Laboratory quality procedures, when implemented appropriately and effectively, increase the confidence of everyone who uses AMR data (such as clinicians, veterinarians, patients, farmers and policy-makers) in the value of the test results.

You will learn about quality procedures in the Quality assurance and AMR surveillance module, but for now we focus on factors that can affect the results of AST and those measures that are taken to ensure data quality.