A journey through quality control

Abstract

The Euroanalysis VII conference in Vienna included a two-day session: Quality Assurance in Analytical Chemistry. The contributions comprised 15 lectures devoted to: intra-laboratory quality measures, inter-laboratory control, formal aspects and accreditation and implementation. The paper presents an overview of the main items developed by the contributors.

Trends in quality assurance of metal determination in clinical chemistry†

“…The need for laboratory personnel to be sufficiently trained and motivated is another important factor as up to 25% of all operating deficiencies are directly attributable to operating personnel. 2 Laboratories aiming at high quality work must demonstrate that their measurement results meet the required level of trueness and precision. Several established quality control practices are available for the realisation of this goal and most of them have been thoroughly described in the literature and/or in standards and guidelines for quality assurance.…”

“…2 Example of uncertainty evaluation of a method for the analysis of cobalt in urine. The relation between the total uncertainty, RSD tot , and the single uncertainty components, RSD i , is calculated using the equation (RSD tot ) 2 = S (RSD i ) 2 . Major contributions to the total uncertainty in this example are recovery and matrix effects.…”

Study of the stability of extractable phosphate content in a candidate reference material using a modified Williams extraction procedure

“…This scheme, especially when it is backed up by reference materials, may facilitate the achievement of good quality control of analysis. At this stage it is necessary to demonstrate the feasibility of the preparation of material that fulfils the basic requirements of a CRM for stability and homogeneity, [12][13][14][15] not as regards the total phosphorus content but for the extractable phosphate content, by applying the adopted scheme.…”