There is an increasing dependence on clinical and public health laboratories for better patient management and also for preventing the spread of emerging pathogens. With rapid and significant growth of laboratories at all levels of health care, it has become mandatory to check results to make them reliable and cost-effective, as well as comparable with those obtained by international laboratories. The International Standards Organization (ISO) has provided several guidelines and standards for achieving quality in laboratory results.
These guidelines dwell upon the basic concepts of quality assurance in microbiology and also describe essential practices and steps of ensuring quality in various activities that a microbiology laboratory is expected to undertake in its support to primary health care system in a biosafe environment and in accordance with ISO. Following these guidelines will help in delivery of reliable, cost-effective and timely laboratory results and support clinical and public health actions.