CLINICAL LAB SCIENEC

CHAPTER 2: LABORATORY PERSONNEL CREDENTIALING AND FACILITY ACCREDITATION 53
Two agencies that support the efforts of medical laboratory technologists
and technicians are the ASCLS and the ASCP. Both of these organizations support
laboratory personnel licensure since accurate testing by medical laboratories
is not possible without practitioners who have been deemed competent, from
the technician to the technologist level. One might use the oft-repeated analogy
that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and weak personnel standards
result in poor end products. These professional societies would still function as
advocates for the profession of laboratory medicine by pushing for consistent
and stronger personnel requirements, even if they were no longer responsible
for examining and registering medical laboratory workers. There is a need for
these societies to provide professional development and to provide a forum for
discussion and action by those who work as medical laboratory professionals.
Regional meetings for medical laboratory personnel, exposure to literature and
new technology, and opportunities for continuing education would be valid reasons
for their continued existence.
A slightly different form of an argument previously listed is the old debate
between those in favor of personnel licensure and those against it. Those in
favor state that even hairdressers have to be licensed to apply their skills professionally,
which are not in general life-threatening in its practice. But currently
only 11 states and territories have laboratory personnel licensure even though
they perform tests that have the potential of directly affecting the lives and wellbeing
of patients. Most states have a highly vocal group of medical laboratory
workers who support the process of personnel licensure, but few of these are
pathologists. State branches of professional societies have made repeated efforts
to achieve personnel licensure in a number of states, but none have been successful
in the past several decades except for Montana, whose law was approved in
1993, and New York, in 2005, through the efforts of the state societies. Efforts
in the early 2000s were aimed toward personnel licensure in several other states.
Licensure efforts were renewed during this time period in Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts,
Missouri, Minnesota, New York, and Pennsylvania. State leaders
are renewing their efforts in all of these states toward achieving their goal for
licensure.
Not all of the provisions of New York’s state licensure laws were met with
unbounded enthusiasm, even by those in favor of licensure in the state. As in
most other licensure endeavors, when new legislation is proposed, enacted, and
then implemented, there are special provisions that must be addressed and that
often only relate to a small number of individuals. In 2005, when New York
State enacted its new laboratory personnel licensure regulations, a number of
issues either were not addressed or were not palatable to professional organizations
such as ASCP and ASCLS.
Legislation is usually written to cover those who were previously considered
“qualified” or to allow a timeframe in which to meet the new requirements.
“Grandfather clauses” allow those who have worked in the field for an arbitrarily
set number of years to have a route for becoming licensed even with few
or none of the requirements for becoming licensed by formal means of education
and training. New York’s law included provisions for both of these routes
to licensure. There were a number of “grandparenting” provisions for gaining
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