{"id":440,"date":"2015-11-18T21:32:27","date_gmt":"2015-11-18T21:32:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/forensicsforum.net\/?p=440"},"modified":"2015-11-18T21:32:27","modified_gmt":"2015-11-18T21:32:27","slug":"houston-lab-introduces-blind-quality-controls-for-toxicology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.law.duke.edu\/forensicsforum\/2015\/11\/18\/houston-lab-introduces-blind-quality-controls-for-toxicology\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston Lab Introduces Blind Quality Controls for Toxicology"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year, city officials officially closed the Houston Police Department Crime Laboratory and created in its place an independent forensic lab called the Houston Forensic Science Center.\u00a0 The new lab caused quite a stir at national meetings in Washington recently when it announced that it would\u00a0begin blind\u00a0quality control testing\u00a0in its toxicology section.\u00a0 Blind\u00a0quality control is a quality measure\u00a0that\u00a0experts have promoted\u00a0but which has been noticeably absent in forensic science.\u00a0 At the November meeting of the board of directors for the Houston lab, the new process was explained to the board by the COO Dr. Peter Stout.\u00a0\u00a0His presentation on this issue\u00a0is\u00a0found at minute 40 of the\u00a0videotape of the meeting found here<\/a>.\u00a0 As he explains, the lab now creates test toxicology samples that are made to look like genuine case work.\u00a0 These test samples are placed into the system at the police property room so that no analyst at the lab knows which samples are real case work and which are test samples.\u00a0 This enables the\u00a0lab managers to\u00a0challenge and assess\u00a0the entire toxicology system, as well as the proficiency of individual analysts.\u00a0 Analysts\u00a0are now aware\u00a0that 5% of their case load will be comprised of test cases.\u00a0 The laboratory is refining its process so as to spread the test samples evenly across all analysts.\u00a0 The lab plans to conduct blind verification continuously from now on.\u00a0 As a member of the board, I expect that this will be the first of additional blind verification systems that are put into place for the other forensic disciplines in the Houston lab.\u00a0 I recently published a book that highlights the transformation of the Houston\u00a0lab\u00a0and also addresses the need for blind quality controls.\u00a0\u00a0Valena Beety’s post with more information on the book, as well as\u00a0a link to the\u00a0book review she\u00a0has written\u00a0is found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last year, city officials officially closed the Houston Police Department Crime Laboratory and created in its place an independent forensic lab called the Houston Forensic Science Center.\u00a0 The new lab caused quite a stir at national meetings in Washington recently… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paNSM2-76","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.duke.edu\/forensicsforum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.duke.edu\/forensicsforum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.duke.edu\/forensicsforum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.duke.edu\/forensicsforum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.duke.edu\/forensicsforum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.duke.edu\/forensicsforum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.duke.edu\/forensicsforum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.duke.edu\/forensicsforum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.duke.edu\/forensicsforum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}