Regional quality control survey of blood-gas analysis

We undertook an external quality control survey of blood-gas analysis in 16 laboratories at 13 hospitals. All samples were prepared in the laboratories under investigation by equilibration of blood or serum with gas mixtures of known composition. pH of serum was measured with no significant bias but with an SD of random error 0.026 pH units, which was almost twice the SD of the reference range (0.015). An acceptable random error (half SD of reference range) was not obtained in a longitudinal internal quality control suvey although there were acceptable results for buffer pH in both field and internal surveys. Blood PO2 was measured with no significant bias but with SD of random error 1.38 kPa which reduced to 0.72 kPa by excluding one egregious result. The latter value was just over half of the SD of the reference range (1.2 kPa). PCO2 of blood was also measured without significant bias but with a much smaller SD of random error of 0.28 kPa (by excluding one egregious result), which was again just over half the SD of the reference range (0.51 kPa). Measurements of blood PO2 and PCO2 seem generally acceptable in relation to their respective reference ranges but measurements of pH were unsatisfactory in both internal and external trials.