Participants in the Centre for Proficiency Testing program are encouraged to read the important changes announced in the Public Health Ontario (PHO) Labstract – October 2019 Reference Bacteriology and Antimicrobial Susceptibility: New Requisition and Testing Algorithm for Improved Test Utilization.

American Society for Microbiology (ASM) Microbe 2019 was held in San Francisco on June 20–24 and IQMH was there! Dr. Susan Poutanen (former Bacteriology Scientific Committee chair) and Elaine Kerr, Consultant Technologist, Centre for Proficiency Testing attended. Dr. Poutanen gave two oral presentations and Elaine Kerr presented the posters based on an analysis of the data obtained from IQMH Bacteriology program’s patterns-of-practice surveys:

• "How Modern is your Microbiology Laboratory? Results of the 2017 Institute for Quality Management in Healthcare (IQMH) Patterns-of-Practice Survey” 
• “Patterns-of-Practice Survey Demonstrates the Need for National Guidelines Regarding the Implementation of Microbiology Point-of-Care Tests Across Canada.” 

IQMH data from the Centre for Proficiency Testing Microbiology program’s Bacteriology VRE Bacteraemia Questionnaire (BACT-PHOQ) surveys were used to assist in the validation of VRE bacteremias as reported by Ontario hospitals in the Patient Safety Public Reporting. These data were used in the Public Health Ontario study published on April 4, 2017 and available from CMAJ Open.