PPM Slides

We use MTS (see information below) for our PPM competency. It is a subscription service, based on how many users. They send out digital slides twice a year to the users' email, and you can get reports on who has passed or failed, etc. 

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Kathleen,
Thank you for the suggestion, I will definitely look into this as an option.  Do you still perform a direct observation as a part of the competency?  I was observing the provider perform the unknown and having them describe steps taken as if it were a patient specimen to ensure the testing process was performed correctly and counting this as the direct observation.  Sorry for all the questions, I am fairly new to this position and have simply been doing what the previous POCT Manager had passed along.  I only performed the annual competency for PPM once so far and that was a couple months after taking the position.  Just trying to see if there are better/different ways to go about meeting accrediting agency requirements for PPM testing.

The big question is "who holds the CLIA for the PPM?" We have taken all PPM out of the CLIA/CAP for all our sites, and either have no PPM or have it under its own CLIA. The reason for this is that CAP requires all the training and competency that is required for any mod complex testing, and that has never worked for us with our providers. They do their own training for wet prep and KOH, and we use MTS for the competency. That has worked for us so far. We do not have POCT interact with the clinicians at all except for signing them up to MTS. 

We have all of our PPM practices own their own CLIA with the medical director being an active physician in the practice. We use MTS for competency and really like the digital online quiz that has pictures of identifiable elements. Beware though, MTS does not provide all elements of competency. To compound this as I understand, only providers can competency providers.  So, we have them sign off on each other within each Practice on items like ordering/resulting/using the scope.

I also provide unknowns in the form of micro wet prep samples that I save and have couriered over to the practices.  They stay good for around 4 days refrigerated for items like yeast, clue cells bacterial vag.

I use old CAP Fern Test survey pictures and send them a picture to identify. Not the same as a slide, but the pictures at least hold up well! 

Hello everyone. This year we used a KOH survey from API for competency asessment, but have been unhappy with the slide quality. We were hopeful that is would be a good solution, but it hasn't panned out. 

WSLH has worked for us for years.  Low cost, easy to report micrographs.