Quality of Laboratory Testing
A 2005 NIST/Mayo Clinic study found that even a small calibration error/bias of only 0.1 mg/dL could add up to $60 million in healthcare costs. So what is the quality of calcium testing in the US, and what does it cost?
GHb is a critical test for diabetes control, yet it's not one of the regulated CLIA analytes for proficiency testing. So in addition to determing the actual performance of laboratories for GHb, we need to determine how well labs should be performing. With enough data, though, both tasks can be accomplished...
Over a dozen companies now offer Coag Testing at the Point-of-Care. But do we know how well Coag methods are performing back in the lab? And do those results provide us with insight into performance issues for POC testing?
The October 2004 issue of Clinical Laboratory Strategies headlined an article “Prostate Cancer Research Declares PSA Era ‘Over’” [1]. Thomas Stamey, who is credited with creating the PSA era, now thinks the test is “all but useless.” Despite this, PSA testing continues across America. Does the performance of this test method match its utility?
In our ongoing series on the Quality of Laboratory Testing, we've been looking at as many PT groups as possible. But the questions arises, are some PT group estimates better than others? We take a closer look at CAP PT Sigma metrics.