TOMA Advanced Biomedical Assays S.p.A. Laboratory is a private facility operating within the national health service, based in Via Francesco Ferrer 25/27 in Busto Arsizio. It was the first Italian private facility working on prenatal diagnosis of genetic diseases and one of the first in the world. In the facility there is also a complete service of laboratory assays in clinical chemistry, immunology, toxicology. Our institute has gone through a radical evolution: the acquirement of assay equipments of the newest technology has made possible the implementation of the quality of the service, the drastic reduction of the time required to perform the service and an updating of methods and analytical process. The result of this renewal has made possible for our laboratory to stand out as one of the more technologically advanced among the private ones; at the same time it was necessary to review the typology of the diagnostic performances, in order to be more updated.

In the Laboratory we use the latest technologies and the care we use in choosing this technologies is aimed to obtain the best quality-price ratio for the service supplied, accordingly with the most updates requirements of the health care reform legislation. The Laboratory occupies an area of about 1000 square meters on the ground floor of a renovated building and it is equipped with a modern computer system independently developed and compatible with the higher levels. The Laboratory, beside dealing with the requests of routine activities of the national health service, performs also an activity in occupational health on behalf of companies operating within the national health service and service centres.

The beating heart of the activities of TOMA Advanced Biomedical Assays is fed by:

President, Medical Director:		Dott. F. Maggi
Scientific Director:		Prof. G. Simoni
Marketing Director and Head of Quality Management:		Dott. A. Barlocco
Research And Development Manager:		Dott.ssa F. R. Grati
Head of Cytology:		Prof. M. Martinazzi
Head of Molecular Biology		Dott.ssa F. Dulcetti
Head of Cytogenetic		Prof. G. Simoni
Coordinator of Cytogenetic		Dott.ssa B. Grimi
Manager of Toxicology and drugs of abuse:		Prof.ssa L.S.M. Dell’Acqua
Manager of Clinical Biochemistry:		Dott.ssa E.Sanna
Manager of Microbiology:		Dott.ssa A.Ruggeri
Chief Operations Officer:		Dr. B. Sant’Agata
Coordinator for Quality and Training:		Dott.ssa D.Ferrario
International Marketing, Co. Strategy & Communications Manager:		JD. (LLB BCL) R. Scarafia

Over the last ten years our institute has constantly participated in the control of the analytical process through the participation in various inter-laboratory quality control programs, including those of the Regione Lombardia.

The evolution encountered at international level by the companies providing services and specifically in that part of health care in which diagnostic services are the main expression, the Laboratory has understood that it is not enough just to participate in the inter-laboratory quality control programs. With this in mind it was necessary to have a development in the management of quality that could substitute control with prevention and planning, in order to fulfil all the implicit and explicit demands of the users of the Service, among which the reliability of the numeric data is just one of the aspects, not always the most important and certainly not sufficient.

From the beginning of 2000, following the revision of the rules called ISO 9000 the TOMA Advanced Biomedical Assays S.p.A. Laboratory worked on the transition from the Quality Assurance (ISO 9002, 1994)system to the Quality Management (ISO 9001, 2000) system. the Quality Management system that has been put up, beside taking in good care the past experience aimed to guarantee the client about the fulfilling of the promises (service specifications), is aimed to implement a management system based on the principles of the rule and with a business oriented approach at all levels, with the possibility of personal development for the staff. In this context we have developed a “Service Chart” in which the diagnostic features offered by the TOMA Advanced Biomedical Assays S.p.A. Laboratory are illustrated and in which patients/users may find information on all the various available diagnostic investigations, beside other practical and useful infos.