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27-Mar-2018
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Arch Hellen Med, 35(2), March-April 2018, 252-261 SPECIAL ARTICLE Use of the results of patients' laboratory tests for internal quality control of biochemical laboratories A. Efkarpidis,1 G. Koulierakis,2 P. Efkarpidis,3 M. Sakellariou,4 A. Taxidis1 |
Internal and external quality controls are two important tools for quality monitoring and assurance in biochemical laboratories. These are mandatory procedures for all those laboratories meeting the criteria and accredited by ISO 15189 or ISO 17025. For each test carried out by the laboratory it is necessary to apply an appropriate quality control mechanism. In the case of external quality control, this process involves a second reference laboratory (or organization), which verifies the results of tests on samples sent to the laboratory on a regular basis. For internal quality control, prototype samples are required, the analysis of which must give values within certain limits. The external quality control is usually performed once yearly, but internal quality control is a process that must be performed daily and, in many cases, each time a batch of samples is analyzed which results in increased workload and financial burden. The use of prototype samples can detect errors occurring during the analytical phase, but not errors in the preanalytical and post-analytical phases. Here we investigate alternative internal quality control methods based on patients' routine test results, which do not require the use of special calibrated samples. These methods make possible internal quality control during the laboratory routine, taking into account the pre- and post-analytical phases, without any extra work load and at reduced cost.
Key words: Biochemical laboratory, Examination results, Quality control.
