American Proficiency Institute

American Proficiency Institute has been providing proficiency testing services (third party review) to the hospital and physician office marketplace for over 10 years. Proficiency Testing is a type of external quality control to measure a lab's accuracy. Its purpose is to verify that the performance of each test site is in line with other labs performing the same analysis (e.g., strep throat or cholesterol). Over 14,000 medical laboratories currently use API for this service which is required by a federal law - CLIA 1988. In 1998 we developed specialized samples and software to introduce this concept to the food industry. Our first program was in microbiology and allowed participants to test for organisms such as E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella, and Listeria. We began offering programs for nutritional chemistry analysis the following year. Over 400 laboratories are now enrolled in one or both of these programs, which have attracted the interest of quality conscious executives at companies such as Pillsbury, ConAgra, Cargill, and Tyson - to name a few. More than 30 of the largest food manufacturers in the U.S. and Canada use API for both internal and external proficiency testing programs. With our years of experience in proficiency testing, API is uniquely qualified to provide the food industry with the largest, most innovative, and user-friendly proficiency testing program available.