One reason to have honesty and integrity in laboratory results is to have unbiased, and of course, accurate results. This can be achieved through the implementation of Impartiality, integrated into our laboratory activities, and to be part of our work ethic.
To be impartial to the laboratory’s activities is to be free to exercise your professional judgment and competency as per the actual data results that you have gathered using the established procedures..
After the new revision of ISO 17025 has been released, impartiality has become one of the major requirements to be implemented or even integrated into all laboratory activities. This means it is a mandatory process that must be implemented.
It is not a new requirement, but this time, it has now a new clause with a clear and direct requirement for its implementation (see the clause below).
But being impartial to laboratory activities needs awareness to be understood and implemented smoothly. This is not a single person’s responsibility.
But like any other activity, by following a certain procedure or a system makes it more interesting and easy to implement (as it applies to me as per the system that I will share below.. Read on)
To start understanding Impartiality, I have included its definition from the standard. As per ISO 17025, clause 3.1 Impartiality means:
“The presence of objectivity.”
note to 3.1, stating that “Objectivity is understood to mean that conflicts of interest do not exist, or are resolved so as not to adversely influence the activities of the laboratory.”
are freedom from conflicts of interest,
Freedom from bias
freedom from prejudice,
neutrality,
Fairness,
open-mindedness,
even-handedness,
detachment
10.and balance
More About Conflict of Interest (COI)
I want to explain more about ‘Conflict of Interest’ because this term is confusing in some way.
When we say ‘conflict of interest’, these are the ‘personal interest’ that tends to conflict with our responsibilities and decision-making in relation to the laboratory activities. This can be an outside activity or within the company activity.
Below are some situations where Conflict of Interest could arise:
If you transact with a customer who is an associate or a partner in business, an interest of associate.
If you’re an employee that transacts with a supplier which is your relative, then there is an interest of relative.
When you misuse any information from your job for personal gain.
If you accept a gift from a customer that is “too much” in value (usually secretly that temps you to do a favor) -also known as ‘Intimidation’
General Requirements For Impartiality
As per clause 4 of ISO 17025:2017 Standard, below are the General Requirements for Impartiality
Laboratory activities shall be taken impartially structured and managed so as to safeguard impartiality
The management shall be committed to impartiality
The laboratory shall ensure impartiality in all its activities and not allow commercial, financial or other pressures to compromise impartiality.
The laboratory shall Identify risks to impartiality on an ongoing basis;
Once a risk to impartiality is identified, the lab should demonstrate how to minimize or eliminate such risk.
Examples of Impartiality
Below are some examples of impartiality in laboratory activities to understand it better.
No Conflict of interest – You are not auditing your own work during the scheduled internal audit
Detachment –Technicians are not involved in marketing where they perform the calibration –
Freedom from bias – You are not favoring any request that involves falsification of results
Fairness –The company is not pressuring you financially