Abstract:

For more than 20 years, the medical laboratory profession has been faced with numerous challenges at both the national and international levels. Key problems confronting laboratory professionals include, but are not limited to: an aging workforce; a shortage of qualified laboratory professionals; a lack of harmonization of medical laboratory education program curricula; increased mobility of laboratory practitioners who seek comparable employment outside their country of origin; and the need for international laboratory practice standards. In 2002, the American Society for Clinical Pathology Board of Registry (ASCP-BOR), the premier American laboratory certification agency founded in 1928, began to formally address these problems within their newly created Globalization Task Force. After many years of conducting research, meeting with members of the international laboratory community, and evaluating laboratory practice analyses in select foreign countries, the Task Force concluded that an international certification examination and eligibility routes be established for international laboratory professionals. In 2006, the ASCP BOR Board of Governors approved the Task Force’s recommendation and created an international certification examination program. The new credential was designated ASCPi, and the ASCP BOR began offering select examinations in South Korea that same year. By April of 2009, ASCPi had increased the number of countries approved for international certification to twenty-eight. Beginning in May of 2009, ASCPi became available to qualified laboratory professionals, worldwide. From the inception of the program, ASCPi examinations were only offered in the English language; however recently, based upon popular demand from members of the Spanish-speaking laboratory community, ASCPi examinations are currently being translated into Spanish.

This paper will provide the history and progress of the Task Force activities, along with key results and lessons learned from the ASCP-BOR international laboratory certification program. The authors believe that ASCPi serves as an important vehicle to foster international laboratory practice standards and promote a universal and intercultural competent citizenry within the global laboratory workforce of the 21st century.

Keywords:

medical laboratory, globalization, harmonization, international practice standards, ascpi.