MOOC on quality management

This Massive Open Online Course was created to help medical laboratories build or improve their quality management system (QMS) and understand the ISO 15189 requirements.

The Quality Management MOOC*: Innovative training for everyone, everywhere and at your own pace

MOOC sur le management de la qualité

*Massive Open Online Course

In October 2019, the Mérieux Foundation launched its first MOOC on “Quality management in medical biology laboratories”. Over 4,000 students and professionals around the world signed up!

Numerous training courses are organized annually by the Mérieux Foundation to strengthen the skills of laboratory staff. These face-to-face training courses are highly popular, but are only available for a limited number of people.

A set of videos on quality and laboratory management is also freely available on the YouTube channel. While these videos can be seen by a great number of people, they are not part of a training scheme to help people acquire knowledge and skills.

The previous (2021) session in figures:

4,300+

Registered

97

countries represented

3

YouTube live

460+

discussion threads

The paths:

Knowledge

1,487

certificates of knowledge

Skills

194

certificates of skills

Survey: quality and you

“We are piloting the Labogui project in Guinea where all the regional and prefectural laboratories are committed to a quality approach and this MOOC fits perfectly with our activities in the field. Bravo and good luck”

Woppa Bah

Rewatch the YouTube Live (in French)

Concepts and requirements for building an effective QMS

In order to respond to the massive demand for training, particularly in developing countries, we have had to consider new solutions. In this context, the MOOC format has enabled us to respond to this problem by offering a large number of participants a regular training course.

In partnership with AFNOR and the Pasteur Institute, the Mérieux Foundation’s MOOC offers 3 different courses:

  • a free “customizable” course, aimed at participants who simply wish to access resources and take part in certain activities without aiming for attestation or certification.
  • a knowledge path leading to a badge: “playing a part in the quality initiative”, which validates the theoretical knowledge acquired.
  • a skills path to acquire technical and practice-oriented competences through a skills certificate: “being responsible for the quality initiative”.

The diversity of the educational content and the course units aim to provide a macroscopic, complete and clear vision of the deployment of a quality initiative in the laboratory. From session 1 to 5, MOOC participants can discover the requirements of the ISO 15189 standard as part of a process-based approach, focusing on the professions and laboratory support processes.

In addition to introducing the general issues and concepts, the aim is to give a practical interpretation of the standard and the tools and methods available for quality managers, and for other key positions, for the day-to-day implementation of their quality management system.

  • Session 1: Quality in medical laboratories
  • Session 2: Compliance of medical laboratory work processes
  • Session 3: Compliance of support processes
  • Session 4: Day-to-day quality management
  • Session 5: Development and assessment of the management system

By the end of the session of this MOOC, from October to December 2019, the number of people considering their level of knowledge as “Advanced” had quadrupled*. The training is therefore thought to have led to an increase in skills.

*According to the start and end surveys provided by the France Université Numérique platform.

In parallel with this MOOC, a community based around Quality was created on Linkedin and through the discussion forum. To date, it has over 1,200 members. This group shows that there is a real desire to bring laboratory staff together on a global scale to share this common theme. The objective is to enable members to talk about the obstacles they encounter, and above all to share best practice.

In addition to providing training, the Quality MOOC has a broader vocation which is to launch a movement based around quality as a vector for improving access to diagnosis based on reliable laboratory results.

To complement the training activities, YouTube Lives were organized to create links and interactions between the learners and the training team. Find out more about the latest Lives:

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In partnership with:

AFNOR
Institut Pasteur

Hosted on the platform:

Fun MOOC