What's New on Westgard Web: July 2019

Posted by Sten Westgard, MS

Here's what's new at Westgard Web this month:

Pre-analytical improvements: Have we plateaued on progress?

For more than 20 years, labs have been preoccupied with the pre-analytical. We presume that all the errors are in this phase, that we can ignore the other areas of testing, and we organize conferences, committees, and publish a prolific stream of publications. Massive improvements have been made in these decades, but we may be reaching a limit on progress. As WG-LEPS publishes their latest data and recommendations, other studies are coming that show a decline in progress, a flattening in return on effort.

Has our progress on pre-analytical improvement peaked?
  

EFLM Database: 78 steps forward, 272 steps back

The new EFLM biological variation database has published a wealth of chemistry specifications, from which can be derived desirable imprecision, bias, and allowable total error.

The 2014 Ricos database provided performance specifications for more than 350 analytes. The latest EFLM database has specifications for 78 analytes.  That leaves a rather sizable gap, one that may take more than just 5 years to close.

How do the current biological chemistry performance specifications compare to other goals?
 

FV Hospital: Sigma Verification of Performance


On July 29th, 2019, FV Hospital joined the ranks of the Sigma Verification of Performance program.

FV Hospital achieves the Sigma Verification of Performance