Policies and Procedures

According to the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI)⁸:

Policies are statements that describe overall intentions: what is done and why it is done. Policies are defined by the organization and go through a management review and approval process. (Policies are endorsed by management after this review process.) Examples of policies include attendance at work, employee compensation, conflict of interest, and employee training.

Procedures are the specific step-by-step instructions that are needed to complete an activity of a specific process. Examples of procedures include blood culture collection procedure, Gram stain procedure, blood glucose procedure (using Folin-Wu technique), etc.

Note: Each employer expects the employee to become familiar with the policies and procedures that apply to the specific job classification. Always know where to locate these documents and be able to refer to these documents as necessary.