[Accreditation of a hygiene hospital laboratory for sampling and analysis activities for the detection and counting of Legionella in water]. / Accréditation d'un laboratoire d'hygiène hospitalière pour le prélèvement et l'analyse de recherche et dénombrement des légionelles dans l'eau.

Since January 1(st) 2012, detection and counting of Legionella bacteria have been obligatory in France and must be carried out by COFRAC-accredited laboratories. In our establishment, sampling and analysis were outsourced and our hospital was scheduled to move to a new site. We aimed to develop both these activities in-house and to obtain COFRAC accreditation, whilst organizing the move to the new site. We set up a quality assurance system bringing together staff from the hygiene laboratory and institutional resource managers. We set up sampling and analysis activities in-house 13 months before requesting accreditation. The initial evaluation took place before we moved and identified 17 areas of deficiency, six of which were considered critical. After we had moved, a subsequent evaluation considered 14 of these deficiencies to have been corrected, included the six initially identified as critical. We were therefore awarded accreditation. The quality assurance system established during the year before our request was submitted led to accreditation two and a half years after the transfer in-house of sampling and analysis activities, despite our hospital moving during this period.