Quality Control Practices for Chemistry and Immunochemistry in a Cohort of 21 Large Academic Medical Centers

Abstract

This variation in practice indicates an opportunity exists to establish an evidence-based approach to QC that can be generalized across institutions.

Quality control failures exceeding the weekly limit (QC FEWL): a simple tool to improve assay error detection

“…Much of the analysis presented in this paper has used a limit for QC failures based on an assay whose daily QC control rule is 1 2s , but generally similar performance was shown to be the case using assays whose daily control is either 1 2.5s or 1 3s . In a 2018 survey of 21 clinical laboratories in leading US academic medical centres, 5 16 solely employed the 1 2s rule across all their chemistry and immunoassay tests, 3 used mostly 1 2s , 1 2.5s or 1 3s and only 2 routinely applied Westgard rules. The 1 2s rule seems commonly used in the UK as well, with 55% of laboratories using just this rule in a 2011 survey.…”

When internal quality control is insufficient or inefficient: Consider patient-based real-time quality control!

“…This is evident in the extremely low degree of adoption of these approaches, as observed in a recent survey in USA-based university hospitals. 10 Finally, iQC requires the use of iQC materials and the performing of analytical tests and therefore brings significant costs.…”

La alianza entre el fabricante de IVD y el laboratorio clínico en el control de calidad de los resultados

“…El QC se suele realizar incorrectamente en los laboratorios. Una encuesta sobre prácticas de control de calidad en los laboratorios [8] describe el uso habitual de la norma de control 1 2s en la mayoría de los laboratorios. En la llamada "Gran encuesta de QC 2017" realizada por Westgard [9], se observó que el 55% de los laboratorios aplican la norma de control 1 2s en todos los test.…”