LabNotes - Volume 16, No.1, 2006

NCCLS is now CLSI

On 1 January 2005, NCCLS officially changed its name, becoming Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI).

Between 1967 and 2005, NCCLS grew into the patient-testing community's leading resource for standardized best practices. By the beginning of 2005, the organization had developed into a truly global body, with over 4,000 of the healthcare world's corporations, governmental bodies, and laboratories counting themselves as members or volunteers, and contributing to the development of consensus documents on topics ranging from molecular methods to automation and informatics.

So, why change the name, and why now?

Extensive market research found that a name change was imperative for more accurate representation of the organization on several different fronts:

1. Brand identity studies conducted in 2003 showed that many people were confused by the "N" in the organization's name, which had stood for "national" when NCCLS was known by its full name, National Committee on Clinical Laboratory Standards.
2. With the development of documents on such topics as point-of-care testing and respiratory care, the scope of the organization’s work could no longer be accurately defined as the clinical laboratory but had now become the clinic and the laboratory.
3. With a vast, global member and volunteer base, the term "committee" no longer fairly described the diverse participation and worldwide reach of the organization's consensus process.

"Our organizational values will remain the same... Only our name is changing."

Visit Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) online