Those of you that actually read these posts know that we run Arizona’s benchmark public health laboratory.  But many of you might not know that we also license and inspect clinical and environmental labs in AZ and even some in other parts of the country through our Clinical and Environmental Laboratory Licensing and Compliance programs. 

Our Clinical Lab Certification is handled under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA)- which is part of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.  Essentially, any testing performed on humans for the purposes of clinical treatment, medical diagnosis, health assessment or disease prevention outside of research laboratories, forensic laboratories and laboratories that test for employment purposes in AZ is regulated by our team.  So when you hear about a lab test being completed on someone that lab is regulated by CLIA. The ultimate goal is to provide a high quality reliably test result which the Physician can use in diagnosis and treatment of a patient. 

The Environmental Lab Licensure section ensures that scientific validity and defensibility are accomplished through the use of proper scientific testing methods.  One of the interesting categories of labs licensed (there are four categories, in all) is drinking water.  Each and every company that sells bottled drinking water in Arizona is subject to having their certifying lab evaluated and licensed by our team.  This requires that our inspection personnel travel to each of the labs both in and out of State to conduct mandated inspections.  Here’s the list of all four categories of labs that we regulate.