Histopathology EQA

Circulation 18  - CME Certificates were emailed on 11/04/2019.

Application Form 

 

SOPs for General Histopathology Scheme

 

Answer sheet instructions

 

2018 Payment - €130

Notification will be sent when next payment is due.

A charge will be levied to cover administrative costs of IEQAS. The scheme remains a not-for-profit activity and no other charges or expenses are levied. Payment is required before a response is considered and is required irrespective of whether responses are submitted to one or both distributions per year.

 

 

Background information

The EQA Scheme in General Histopathology is supported by the Faculty of Pathology, which represents the host organisation for the Scheme. The current Scheme Administrator is IEQAS.

 

The Histopathology Working Group of the Faculty of Pathology provides the governance for managing Persistent Substandard Performance in the Scheme.

 

The aims of the Scheme are:

• To contribute to continuing medical education for histopathologists who continue to have a fully or partly generalist practice
• To assist in promoting and maintaining professional standards in general diagnostic histopathology reporting
• To provide individual performance appraisal to general histopathologists based on the principle of peer review
• To promote dialogue and discussion between general histopathologists.
• The limitations of such EQA schemes to reflect or assess real life diagnostic practice are acknowledged

The members of the Scheme provide cases for circulation and collectively, via their participation at the Members’ Meeting, judge and score responses in each circulation, based on the model of peer review. By joining the Scheme, members agree to the Standard Operating Procedures, including stating any diagnostic areas within the scope of the Scheme which is outside their reporting repertoire, committing to providing cases when requested and committing to consistent participation. IEQAS or its Steering Committee play no part in providing or choosing cases for circulation, in judging and scoring responses to circulations or in providing mechanisms for handling Persistent Substandard Performance.

 

The Scheme members agree a Steering Committee, from whom is chosen a Scheme Organiser to act as the key liaison with IEQAS, the Faculty of Pathology and the Histopathology Working Group of the Faculty of Pathology.

 

The Scheme comprises two circulations of 12 scoring slides each per year, with scope for including additional non-scoring cases of a purely educational nature.

 

Individual members each receive personal feedback, with the agreed scoring for their responses to the cases in a circulation compared to the scoring for the membership overall.

 

The Scheme has a Scheme Organiser, a Steering Committee and an independent Scheme Administrator.

 

Members have a confidential PIN that is used to identify their responses and any other confidential matters. Only the independent Scheme Administrator is aware of the link between members’ names and their PINs. This strict confidentiality is maintained in all except defined exceptional circumstances.

 

The Scheme is run on a not-for-profit basis.

 

The Scheme’s dedicated email is histo@ieqas.ie

 

The current Scheme Organiser is:
John O’Dowd
Consultant Histopathologist
Bon Secours Hospital, Dublin 9

 

The current Steering Committee are:
Margaret Sheehan, University College Hospital, Galway
Gerry O’Dowd, Letterkenny General Hospital
Michael Jeffers, AMINCH
Elaine Kay, Beaumont Hospital