Posted by Sten Westgard, MS and James O. Westgard, PhDAs reported elsewhere on the website, several of the symposiums this year were on standardization and harmonization for various analytes. This year, however, there was an added note of urgency. For many laboratorians, standardization seems like a somewhat esoteric subject, important but not necessarily pressing. But with the expectation of widespread implementation of electronic medical records, the problems with “comparability” of test results (and analytical methods) are about to become stark.
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Posted by Sten Westgard, MSA recent abstract from the 2009 IFCC/EFCC (Euromedlab) caught my eye:Quality Indicators for Laboratory Process; assessment in the Trento Department of Laboratory Medicine.I Caola, C Pellegrini, N Bergamo, E Saurini, P Caciagli.CCLM 2009Examining the quality records of five laboratories, they applied a set of Quality Indicators from the IFCC. Errors were tracked and tabulated. The results are quite interesting.
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Posted by Sten Westgard, MSA recent question came in from outside the US, regarding the choice of controls and EQA/PT provider. In such a case, there are often economies gained by choosing the same vendor for both control materials and EQA/PT materials. But the theory of quality control and assurance dictates that you should have independent checks on your processes. Indeed, in some countries, there are regulations which prevent control manufacturers from selling proficiency testing materials for precisely that reason.This is a difficult issue, one that epitomizes the struggle between efficiency (cost) and safety (quality). More after the fold...
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Posted by Sten Westgard, MSI have been meaning to post this for some time. Our good friend and colleagues, Dietmar Stöckl and Linda Thienpont, started their own website in the latter part of 2008: STT-Consulting
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