Presentation of the 16th NMFP meeting held on 4-5 May 2017 in Stockholm

1. ECDC Strategy for laboratory
EQA 2017 ̶ 2020
16th National Microbiology Focal Points meeting
Barbara Albiger, Senior Expert Scientific Quality
Office of the Chief Scientist
European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control
16th NMFP, Stockholm, 4-5 May 2017

2. 1
Rationale
• The EQA schemes are in strong competition for limited
resources, due to foreseen restrictions of the EU budget for
health.
• In the recent years, public health microbiology and
surveillance have witnessed the rapid development of
molecular typing methods and the increasing use of whole
genome sequencing (WGS). These bring new challenges
and opportunities to the execution of ECDC EQA schemes.
• Review of past EQA exercise processes and publication
outputs has identified areas for further improvement to
guarantee optimal public health added value

3. 2
Consultation process and next steps
Action Version Date
Pre-consultation of Heads of DP and ECDC project managers ̶ February 2016
Review of EQA reports (2009 – 2016): lessons learnt ̶ January - October
2016
Consultation of National Focal Points for Microbiology Version 1 October 2016
Feedback to the Heads of DP Version 1 October 2016
Feedback to ECDC project managers Version 1 .1 January 2017
First consultation of the Joint Microbiology and Surveillance Steering
Committee
̶ January 2017
Revision of the EQA strategy 2017 ̶ 2020, Version 1.1. Version 2.0 February 2017
Second consultation of the Joint Microbiology and Surveillance
Steering Committee
̶ March 2017
Internal publication and dissemination ̶ March - June 2017
Feedback to the National Focal Points for Microbiology Version 2 May 2017
Piloting the implementation and the monitoring on 2016 data ̶ January -
December 2017
Monitoring of the implementation ̶ January -
December 2018
First reporting based on 2017 data ̶ January 2019

4. 3
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
0
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1
10
13
17
25
Prioritisation criteria: 15th NMFP meeting
consultation – second round
Which are the three most important criteria ECDC should
consider when prioritising EQAs?
1. Commercial availability
2. Accreditation requirement and quality
assurance
3. Cost for Member States
4. Support to new
technologies/methods/interpretation standards
5. Support to identification capability for
emerging or rare diseases/ drug resistance
6. Support to molecular typing for reporting to EU
surveillance
7. Support to EU technical harmonisation

5. 4
Prioritisation criteria
Support to new technologies, methods and
interpretation standards
Support to identification capability for emerging or
rare diseases or drug resistance
Support to molecular typing for reporting to EU
surveillance
Support to EU technical harmonisation
Accreditation requirement and quality assurance
1
2
3
4
5

6. 5
Vision
‘By 2020, ECDC-supported EQAs will help improve and
maintain high quality and comparability of key laboratory
surveillance data reported at the European level and foster
capabilities to detect emerging and epidemic diseases or drug
resistance threats across EU Member States’

7. 6
Four priority areas
Priority area 1: Consolidate the EQA schemes
quality and efficiency
Priority area 2: Enhance the availability and the
impact of the EQA data
Priority area 3: Focus EQA scope to strengthen
laboratory capacity
Priority area 4: Monitor usefulness to participants

8. 7
Priority areas, strategic objectives and
indicators
Priority area 1: Consolidate the EQA scheme quality
and efficiency
Strategic objective 1.2: Promote inclusive laboratory
participation by all EU/EEA countries
Indicator: Inclusive Member States participation in ECDC
EQAs
Target: By 2020, each EQAs scheme has at least 80 % of
EU/EEA Member States coverage

9. 8
Priority areas, strategic objectives and
indicators cont’
Priority area 2: Enhance the availability and the
impact of the EQA data
Strategy objective 2.1: Enhance the availability and
quality of the EQA reports to ECDC stakeholders
Indicator: Systematic high quality reporting of the EQA data
to ECDC stakeholders
Target: By 2020, each EQA scheme publishes a high quality
report summarising the aggregated and anonymous EU
level results within the year following the EQA round

10. 9
Priority areas, strategic objectives and
indicators cont’
Priority area 3: Focus EQA scope to strengthen
laboratory capacity
Strategy objective 3.1: Link the identified needs to the
country support and training activities at generic and disease
specific levels
Indicator: ECDC country support and training activities
planned within a year to address EQA identified technical
needs
Target: By 2020, each ECDC EQA leads to planning country
support or training activities within a year, if applicable

11. 10
Priority areas, strategic objectives and
indicators cont’
Priority area 4: Monitor usefulness to participants
Strategy objective 4.1: Monitor the EU public health
added-value of the ECDC EQAs
Indicator: Monitoring of the corrective measures and
accreditation input
Target: By 2020, each ECDC EQAs documents if they led to
corrective measures and were included in the Member
States laboratory accreditation dossier

12. 11
EQA as EULabCap indicators
• ECDC EQAs are an integral part of a quality improvement
cycle and capability strengthening process that is collectively
developed across the EU within ECDC Disease Networks
• Proposal for inclusion in the EULabCap monitoring 2016 -
onwards
− Dimension 3: surveillance/ epidemic response support
− Indicators target 3.2: Active participation in EU/EAA
disease networks, to score MS participation in each
annual network EQA

13. 12
EQA as EULabCap indicators
Indicator 3.22 (ECDC): Country was an active participant in
the European expert laboratory network for emerging viral
diseases (EVD-LabNet)
– participated in external quality assessments (EQA)
reported to/coordinated by ECDC
– participated in annual meeting
NA = information not available/not applicable
0 = no participation
1 = EQA participation OR participation in annual meeting
2 = EQA participation AND participation in annual meeting

14. 13
Thank you for listening,
ECDC.Microbiology@ecdc.europa.eu
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