What's New on Westgard Web: September 2011

Posted by Sten Westgard, MS

QC PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

At the 2011 AACC/ASCLS convention, Bio-Rad held an industry workshop with Dr. Westgard, who reviewed the history of quality control in laboratories, as well as its present problems and possible futures.

Where have we been, Where are we now, and Where are we going with QC?
https://westgard.com/history-and-future-of-qc.htm


QC REALITY CHECK, PART FIVE

Dr. Dietmar Stockl continues his series on quality control. This article discusses the need for stability and its relationship to the quality requirement.

How stable should my laboratory test be?
https://westgard.com/dietmar-qc-5.htm


NORMALIZATION OF DEVIANCE

Back in 1996, Diane Vaughan coined the term "Normalization of Deviance" to describe how NASA and its contractors rationalized their way into the disastrous decision to launch the Challenger space shuttle in 1986. Decades later, this safety concept still applies - and is very germane to our current QC practices in the laboratory.

Have deviations in testing and QC become too normal?
https://westgard.com/normal-lab-deviance.htm


RISK ANALYSIS: IDENTIFYING FAILURE MODES

An essential part of Risk Analysis is figuring What Can Go Wrong - in other words, the failure modes of a process. So you've assembled your team, chosen your process, diagrammed the process - now what? You need to identify failure modes and summarize them in a "fishbone" diagram.
[This is an book excerpt/preview]
https://westgard.com/identifying-failure-modes.htm