ISO/IEC 17025:2005 Accreditation of the Indiana State Department of Health Lab

<p>Summary: The purpose of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) is to improve the safety of the nation?s food supply through an increased focus on outbreak prevention. At the laboratory level, FSMA will help create a nationally integrated food safety system aimed at enhancing the capacity of quality testing of State manufactured food by mandating primary food testing labs to attain accreditation. As an accredited lab, the Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH) Laboratories will be better prepared to address public health and safety concerns in Indiana and the nation. Accreditation of the ISDH Food Microbiology and Chemistry Laboratories will reinforce the agency's objective to provide high-quality data and testing reliability essential to both promoting FSMA and meeting the ISO 17025:2005 standards. The goal of the ISDH Laboratories is to achieve and maintain ISO 17025:2005 lab accreditation for manufactured food regulatory testing, both chemical and microbiological. This would include but not be limited to the improvement of a Quality Management System, full implementation of document control, development/implementation of analyst training and competency verification, extensive review of analytical standard operating procedures, and selecting the proficiency testing programs to meet the requirements of the accrediting body. The ISDH Laboratories intend to maintain involvement with FERN in all of the available areas of expertise. Laboratory accreditation will also assist the ISDH Food Protection Program in achieving conformance with the Manufactured Food Regulatory Program Standards (MFRPS)</p>.