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Middle East Fertility Society Journal Vol. 11, No. 2, 2006, p. 140 BOOK REVIEW Quality and risk management in the IVF laboratory. David Mortimer and Sharon T. Mortimer. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, UK, 2005. Code number: mf06026 Quality and risk management in the IVF laboratory is an essential guide for successfully managing IVF center. It condenses a wealth of expertise and experience from the authors in troubleshooting and implementing quality management in the IVF laboratory. The chapters are well written and provide easily understandable examples, with 14 chapters covering the basics of all essential aspects of quality and risk management of IVF laboratory. Chapter 1 is introductory; explaining why and for whom this book was written; quality management beyond basic assay quality control is often poorly understood by biomedical scientists, especially outside clinical chemistry and pathology laboratories. In particular, risk analysis and minimization are being demanded of IVF labs, but many IVF scientists have only limited understanding of how to go about these tasks. Perhaps this is because the majority of scientists working in clinical IVF labs have come from academic/research backgrounds and, as a consequence, many have limited experience of the practicalities of laboratory management – and even fewer have any formal training in it. The authors quoted: "We have written this book to bring together the basics of these essential aspects of laboratory management in the context of IVF labs. The book is aimed at scientists who know their own technical field, but to whom the concepts of process and systems management are less familiar - if not actually alien." The early chapters provide basic definitions and explanations of the concepts and terminology that are used in quality and risk management e.g. Chapter 2. Regulation, licensing and accreditation; Chapter 3. Quality and quality management; chapter 4. What is risk? chapter 5. Process and systems. How quality and risk management are tightly integrated in achieving optimum success rates, avoiding mistakes, and running an efficient -and successful -laboratory service are demonstrated in later chapters e.g. Chapter 6. Making it work; chapter 7. Quality and risk management tools; chapter 8. What's gone wrong? -troubleshooting; chapter 9. Risk management - being proactive. Finally, there are chapters that provide basic advice and examples on the use of the various quality and risk management tools and techniques for developing and implementing management systems in your own lab e.g. Chapter 10. How are we doing? -benchmarking; chapter 11. Specifying systems; chapter 12. Human resources: finding (and keeping) the right staff; chapter 13. The well run lab. The last chapter contains a comprehensive list of references and recommended reading. The book is well-written; the layout is friendly with generous amount of photographs, tables, figures and flowcharts. We recommend this book to scientists concerned with quality improvement and risk management in IVF. Ideally, every IVF unit should have a copy. Bassam Elhelw, FRCOG, MFFP Copyright © Middle East Fertility Society |
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