Transnational Evaluation of a New Continuing Professional Development Activity for Biomedical Scientists Based on the International Organisation for Standardisation for Medical Laboratories ISO 15189

Abstract

The European Union’s Lifelong Learning Leonardo Program awarded funding of over 100,000 euros to a Leonardo Partnership project to facilitate the development of good practice in continuing professional development (CPD) for Biomedical Scientists. A series of high quality CPD activities along with an EU-toolkit are being developed by the project and will be made available to European hospital laboratories via the project website and Community of Practice. This paper reports on transnational evaluation of the second European CPD activity which is based on the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO 15189) standard for Medical Laboratories. Biomedical Scientists from hospital laboratories in Croatia, Czech Republic, Malta and the United Kingdom took part in evaluation of the CPD activity by completion of an evaluation questionnaire and reflective learning sheet. The new CPD activity was exceptionally well received as scores of over 96% were acquired for useful and appropriateness to scope of practice, relevance to CPD, enhancement to scope of practice and enhancement to CPD. This CPD activity has successfully enhanced European Union Biomedical Scientist’s CPD as over 95% of participants rated the exercise as either good or excellent.