Category: Auditing

Listen and Learn: Develop These Soft Skills and Become a Better Medical Device Auditor

Quality System Auditing - Listening Skills

You’ve heard it many times before: “Great (insert any profession here) are made, not born.” The saying is especially applicable to auditors. Truly effective auditors seem to have an ability to effortlessly extract nuggets of good information from their interviewees. They know how to use certain techniques to dig deeper even when their subjects are less than forthcoming. While some auditors may find it easier than others to develop these soft skills, they are very learnable skills.

Focus on What Is Being Said, Not What You Will Ask Next

The best medical device auditors are first and foremost great listeners.…

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All Topics, Auditing

Writing Medical Device Audit Reports That People Will Read – and Take Action On

Whether you are auditing a critical supplier for compliance with 21 CFR Part 820 or conducting an internal MDSAP audit for another facility within your company, the audit report is the most important output of your hard work. The audit report represents the who, what, why, and how of the audit…and your primary goal is to get people to take action. How you go about crafting that report will make a big difference in what action is taken on your insights and recommendations.…

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All Topics, Auditing, ISO 13485:2016, Medical Device Quality Assurance

ISO 19011:2018 Changes: How They Impact Medical Device QMS Auditors

ISO 19011:2018Management system standards such as ISO 13485:2016 define the requirements that auditors are reviewing for conformance – the what – but they don’t get into the details of how to audit against them. ISO 19011, on the other hand, does just that – it provides a methodology to guide auditors in doing their work by adding further context and guidance.

ISO 19011 was previously updated in 2011. Since then, the practice of auditing has evolved in the ways that audits are managed, planned, and executed.…

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All Topics, Auditing

The US FDA Case for Quality (CfQ): What It Is and Why You Should Care

FDA's Case for QualityFor decades, the medical device industry has largely viewed the US Quality System Regulation (QSR) as a regulatory speedbump on the path to market access. Despite the regulation’s name, product quality has typically taken a back seat to regulatory compliance for manufacturers.

That’s understandable, since FDA’s inspection-oriented approach has rigorously emphasized compliance with specific aspects of 21 CFR Part 820. In recent years, FDA has had an epiphany of sorts. FDA inspectors had been seeing a high volume of the same issues year after year and, after talking with numerous industry stakeholders, FDA concluded that the regulations simply were not sufficient on their own to ensure high product quality and patient safety.…

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All Topics, Auditing, US FDA Updates
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