Required section · Section 1 of 6

The tracer picks your file

A CAP inspector working a bench chemistry section pulls one employee's personnel file. The section switched to a new higher-throughput chemistry analyzer six weeks ago, and the inspector wants to see what happened to competency for that testing person on that specific test system. This is the tracer method: follow one thread, from written policy to the record to what actually happens at the bench, and see whether it holds together.

One document is not in the file: a competency assessment specific to the new analyzer. The prior analyzer had one, twice in year one and once annually after that. This record gap requires investigation of the actual testing history; it does not itself prove testing occurred before competency.

Can this laboratory show that its written system is the system actually in use, and that this person remains competent for this test system, not just for the one it replaced? Working through this one file is the fastest way to see what an inspection is really sampling.

Knowledge checks

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Knowledge check 1

A CAP inspector pulls one employee's file for a new analyzer and checks training, QC, PT, and competency records together. What is the inspector primarily evaluating?

Choose one option.

Whether the required documents exist somewhere in the laboratory

Whether the laboratory's written policy is the system actually used at the bench

Whether the most recent PT event came back satisfactory

Whether the analyzer's most recent calibration passed

Section status

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The module finishes after every required section is marked done and every check in those sections is correct.