The Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) received the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9001:2015 certificate which proves that the Institute has conformed with the new standard last July 7, 2017.

TÜV Rheinland, the global provider of technical, safety, and certification services, officially accredited the Institute.

RITM already received certification for the ISO 9001:2008 standard last 2014, and was swift in complying with the 2015 version of the standard.

According to RITM Quality Assurance Office (QAO) Head Dr. Edison Alberto, the ISO 2015 standard primarily focused on risk-based thinking. Risk management was given emphasis in order for organizations and companies to examine the possible risks within their processes and services.

This would entail less dissatisfaction from customers, since possible risks have already been identified and resolved even before the service is provided.

“As one of the first government organizations accredited with the ISO 9001:2015 standard, this implies that RITM is updated in terms of the current international standard in managing an organization. This also means a better quality of service,” said Dr. Alberto.

RITM Director Soccoro Lupisan also reaffirmed that this certification meant better service delivery.

“We do not do things according to whim but according to SOPs. Like in laboratories, you cannot just change the procedure because you’re going to get a different outcome. And you can get hurt, cause you’re not following procedures,” she said.

In sustaining this quality of service, Dr. Alberto explained that QAO will continuously uphold this quality of service by regularly conducting internal audits and evaluation procedures – one of which is through the customer survey forms.

“The customer service process is one of the best practices of the Institute that we shared with the Department of Health. QAO developed a partner system for every department wherein one department is tasked to encode the customer survey forms for another department. With this, the element of bias in encoding is eliminated,” shared Dr. Alberto.

Also, Dr. Lupisan strongly clarified that the Institute will not stop at simply being accredited.

“It’s going to be our lifestyle. It’s going to be our way of life. We won’t do things just our way. We’ll do things the right way,” she ended.

by Chicco Emmanuel Carmona, Contributor