Building the nation's first institute for laboratory quality.

Hopeful schemes to improve the quality of laboratory testing and services through a potential public-private partnership soon developed into the establishment of the Institute for Quality in Laboratory Medicine in 2005. This article chronicles the establishment of the Institute, its accomplishments, and the challenge that ultimately led to its voluntary closing in 2007. As the first institute of its kind, the Institute for Quality in Laboratory Medicine demonstrates how cooperation and collaboration among diverse, and sometimes disparate, parties can achieve quality of care objectives.