Indicators and quality specifications for strategic and support processes related to the clinical laboratory: four years' experience
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Rosa Ruiz
Abstract
Background: Quality specifications for indicators of the key analytic processes have been defined by international consensus. However, only preliminary specifications for laboratory-related strategic and support processes have been developed. The present study attempts to increase the robustness of the preliminary proposed specifications.
Methods: Recovering records and incidences occurred over a 4-year follow-up period, for 12 indicators, used in all laboratories from this group regarding strategic and support processes.
Results and conclusions: The results obtained indicate that it is better to establish an interval rather than a fixed value for the majority of indicators. Longer studies are needed to properly assess some quality specifications, and data recording system must be standardized in others. Additional, multicenter studies are needed to establish more robust specifications and determine the state of the art of laboratories in other settings.
Clin Chem Lab Med 2010;48:1015–9.
©2010 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin New York
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Articles in the same Issue
- HIGHLIGHT: LABORATORY DIAGNOSTICS IN THE THIRD MILLENIUM: WHERE, HOW AND WHY
- Editorial
- Foreword
- Reviews
- Roots, development and future directions of laboratory medicine
- The “hospital central laboratory”: automation, integration and clinical usefulness
- Clinical pathology services: remapping our strategic itinerary
- Stat laboratory testing: integration or autonomy?
- Point-of-care testing in critical care: the clinician's point of view
- Reproductive-endocrine point-of-care testing: current status and limitations
- Laboratory testing in pharmacies
- Laboratory testing during critical care transport: point-of-care testing in air ambulances
- Self-monitoring of blood glucose with a focus on analytical quality: an overview
- Molecular diagnostics: between chips and customized medicine
- Evaluating laboratory diagnostic tests and translational research
- Integrated diagnostics: a conceptual framework with examples
- General Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine
- The European Register of Specialists in Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine: Guide to the Register, Version 3-2010
- The prevalence of preanalytical errors in a Croatian ISO 15189 accredited laboratory
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- PATHFAST™ NT-proBNP (N-terminal-pro B type natriuretic peptide): a multicenter evaluation of a new point-of-care assay
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