Abstract
For the results of pulmonary function testing to be valid, the examination must be administered by a knowledgeable technician and the instrument must fulfill performance criteria. In general, most small to mid-sized industries rely upon local medical clinics to provide pulmonary function tests. Because of this, a survey was undertaken to study the pulmonary function testing services available at occupational medical clinics in a large metropolitan area. The purpose of this study was:
to determine the percentage of clinics complying with the program prerequisites mentioned above, and to identify the other predictive characteristics of clinics more likely to meet these standards.
A random sample of occupational medical clinics providing pulmonary function testing were selected for this study. Of the 31 clinics providing pulmonary function testing services, a random sample of 14 were chosen to perticipate; for these clinics, administrators and/or physicians were interviewed and testing equipment was examined. It was found that 17% of clinics employed certified technicians to conduct testing and 42% had instruments meeting performance specifications. Overall, only 8% of the sample met both prerequisites. No significant relationship was found between selected variables that it was hoped would identify clinics more likely to perform valid pulmonary function testing. It is believed that a larger sample size would be necessary to establish such significant correlations.