Open AccessStandardization in laboratory medicine: Adoption of common reference intervals to the Croatian population
Author(s) -
Zlata Flegar-Meštrić,
Sonja Perkov,
Andrea Radeljak
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
world journal of methodology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2222-0682
DOI - 10.5662/wjm.v6.i1.93
Subject(s) - standardization , harmonization , comparability , traceability , medical laboratory , reference values , population , quality (philosophy) , medicine , computer science , medical physics , risk analysis (engineering) , environmental health , pathology , mathematics , acoustics , physics , combinatorics , operating system , philosophy , software engineering , epistemology
Considering the fact that the results of laboratory tests provide useful information about the state of health of patients, determination of reference value is considered an intrinsic part in the development of laboratory medicine. There are still huge differences in the analytical methods used as well as in the associated reference intervals which could consequently significantly affect the proper assessment of patient health. In a constant effort to increase the quality of patients' care, there are numerous international initiatives for standardization and/or harmonization of laboratory diagnostics in order to achieve maximum comparability of laboratory test results and improve patient safety. Through the standardization and harmonization processes of analytical methods the ability to create unique reference intervals is achieved. Such reference intervals could be applied globally in all laboratories using methods traceable to the same reference measuring system and analysing the biological samples from the populations with similar socio-demographic and ethnic characteristics. In this review we outlined the results of the harmonization processes in Croatia in the field of population based reference intervals for clinically relevant blood and serum constituents which are in accordance with ongoing activity for worldwide standardization and harmonization based on traceability in laboratory medicine.