Quality Assurance on a Personal Level
A friend of mine says, tongue-in-cheek, that life gets pretty interesting sometimes when you’re married to the Holy Spirit. His wife just smiles and shakes her head when he says that. She probably tolerates his saying so because she knows the trouble he’d be in if she just let things go!
I’m currently on a temporary assignment to the Quality Assurance team at one of GE Healthcare’s facilities. I’ve gotten the distinct impression that this team, in many ways, is like “the company conscience”. Since I wrote about the conscience a few days ago I thought I might reflect on it a bit more from another vantage point.
I’ve seen some interesting things the weeks I’ve been there so far. Attempted end-around’s, ideas that appear to be compliance not really complying at all. I’ve also seen teachability, genuine working together, the whole gamut. This team of eight or nine people have been tasked with making sure things are done right at this facility, complete with adequate training, proper documentation, accurate interpretation of work instructions, CAPA procedures (Corrective Action, Preventive Action), the change process — it’s comprehensive.
It seems Quality Assurance is there to assure that quality is un-compromised. That any discomfort the organization feels comes from within on the way to compliance, rather than from the outside during an FDA audit. This team takes its job serious. It has even gone to the trouble of scheduling an internal mock FDA audit, the objective being to discover areas of need so they can fix things before they become what they call a “finding”. (I hear it’s going to be quite the experience.)
While I won’t over-spiritualize the setting, this all reminds me of something the apostle Paul wrote to a church with a troubled conscience:
1 Cor. 11:31
But if we examine ourselves, we will not be examined by God and judged in this way.
How’s your personal Quality Assurance team? Are there people close to you to whom you can turn when you wonder if something you’re doing is in compliance with the Word? Do you have a handful of friends, your husband or wife being one of them, who have permission to say “This is out of spec; you need to correct it and put some thing in place to keep it from recurring” ? These close friends should be able to help you “come into compliance” and make it the norm. Take it from me, some discomfort now sure beats heartache and loss later. Plus, there’s a lot of freedom in being able to say “Look all you want, I believe you’ll find everything is in order.”
Maybe being married to the Holy Spirit isn’t as bad as it sounds.
Something to think about — and do.
