Premium
The importance of internal quality control data in national external quality assessment schemes. Plasma progesterone assays
Author(s) -
Kay C.,
Kemp K. W.,
Nix A. B. J.,
Rowlands R. J.,
Groom G. V.,
Wilson D. W.,
Griffiths K.
Publication year - 1983
Publication title -
statistics in medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.996
H-Index - 183
eISSN - 1097-0258
pISSN - 0277-6715
DOI - 10.1002/sim.4780020205
Subject(s) - external quality assessment , quality (philosophy) , control (management) , computer science , quality assessment , scheme (mathematics) , reliability engineering , statistics , medicine , mathematics , pathology , engineering , artificial intelligence , mathematical analysis , philosophy , epistemology
Co‐ordinators of external quality assessment schemes in the U.K. despatch samples of quality control material to participant laboratories at frequent intervals to assess laboratory performance. We show, via a controlled experiment on the plasma progesterone assay, that the current analysis performed by the external assessors is inadequate and often leads to erroneous conclusions about a laboratory's performance. It is concluded that for a proper assessment of a laboratory's performance, the external assessor should prepare large pools of plasma and distribute them to all participants in the scheme to use as internal quality control material.