the department of Medical Laboratory Sciences / Faculty of Health Professions – Al Quds University, implemented the External Quality Control Program for medical laboratories in 1995. At the end of the year 2001, the program ceased due to the political events experienced by all the governorates of the West Bank, and the inability to communicate with laboratories. In line with the main objective of the program to contribute to raising the level of medical laboratory services, the program was re-activated in early 2009. In September 2011 the name was changed from “External Quality Control Program” to “Center for Quality Control in Laboratory Medicine”.   In May 2012, the center was moved to the new headquarters in the city of Al-Bireh.

The center offers two programs aiming to serve and develop medical laboratory services and laboratory workers in Palestine.  The programs are:

1. External Quality Control Program, which is the only national program of its kind in Palestine. The program provides services to the medical laboratories of the major health institutions in the West Bank.  At the present stage, the program works to expand its services to involve private laboratories.
2. Continuing Education Program: The program works with the quality control program to solve the problems of laboratories through the provision of specialized training courses to meet local needs with focus on the area of ​​quality control.

This is an inter-laboratory comparison designed and conducted to assure the following:

evaluation of participants' performance evaluation of method performance; and continuous education, training and help. The main aim of the activities of an EQAS in Laboratory Medicine is to sustain improvements in the quality of services provided by participating laboratories for the benefit of patients.