Texas Forensic Science Commission Quality Incidents
Welcome to the Texas Forensic Science Commission’s quality incident library, a centralized library for the public to search and access quality incident and corrective action documents by participating Texas-accredited laboratories. The information in the library may be searched using a word searching tool. The library includes a wide variety of different types of incidents (from minor to significant) that may or may not have required any corrective action by the laboratory. The date ranges applicable to the quality incidents in the library may vary depending on the participating laboratory.
As a required component of accreditation, laboratories must document non-conformities (at varying level of detail depending on the circumstances). Depending on the nature of the non-conformity, the laboratory may need to take corrective action and monitor the effectiveness of the corrective action.
A non-conformity may be as simple as an administrative error that does not impact casework, or it may be more serious such as a switched sample in casework. Just because an individual is associated with a non-conformity does not mean they did anything wrong in a given case (or cases). Because laboratories are engaged in a process of continuous quality improvement, it is expected that analysts and managers alike will all have involvement in quality incidents (and corrective action) at various points in their professional careers. A robust quality assurance program is an indicator of a high-functioning laboratory.
The Commission encourages interested members of the public to utilize this tool alongside the self-disclosure and complaint sections of the Commission’s database when searching for information regarding a particular issue of interest.
Participating laboratories have uploaded laboratory quality incidents and corrective information to the best of the laboratory’s ability to digitize and transfer their information to this centralized location. Please be advised that some historical information may not be accessible or may not be complete.
If you have specific questions about a quality incident or corrective action report or would like to obtain supplemental information you are unable to find using the search engine, please contact the laboratory’s quality manager directly. Contact information for quality managers may be found in the accreditation section.
NOTE: The QI library was officially launched in July 2024. It will take laboratories a significant amount of time to populate the library, as they engage in the process of transferring information from their current records to the library. Accordingly, members of the public interested in viewing this information should check back periodically. If you are unable to find information you are seeking, please contact the laboratory directly.