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External quality assessment of hormone determinations
1UK NEQAS [Edinburgh], Department of Laboratory Medicine, Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH16 4SA, UK.
Best Practice & Research. Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism
|November 27, 2013
Summary
External quality assessment (EQA) is crucial for clinical endocrinology hormone testing. It identifies areas for improvement in routine practice, ensuring patient safety and enhancing laboratory accreditation and educational resources.
Area of Science:
- Clinical Endocrinology
- Laboratory Medicine
- Diagnostic Assays
Background:
- Hormone determinations are vital in clinical endocrinology.
- Ensuring accurate hormone testing is a shared responsibility among clinicians, labs, manufacturers, and regulators.
- External quality assessment (EQA) serves as an audit tool to improve test use and reduce patient risks.
Purpose of the Study:
- Review the principles, strengths, and limitations of EQA in hormone testing.
- Highlight challenges in EQA scheme design for immunoassays.
- Discuss the role of EQA in improving assay design, calibration, and interpretation.
Main Methods:
- Review of EQA principles and practices.
- Analysis of example data from UK National External Quality Assessment Service (UK NEQAS).
- Discussion of challenges related to immunoassay characteristics and calibrators.
Main Results:
- EQA identifies areas needing improvement in routine hormone test use.
- Specific challenges exist in EQA for immunoassays due to analyte heterogeneity and calibrator issues.
- EQA can assess analytical performance, reference range consistency, and result interpretation.
Conclusions:
- EQA is essential for ensuring and improving the quality of laboratory services in clinical endocrinology.
- EQA plays a valuable role in laboratory accreditation and serves as an educational resource.
- Collaboration through EQA can prioritize improvements in assay design and calibration.
Keywords:
accreditationclinical & laboratory auditendocrine testsexternal quality assessmentproficiency testingMore Related Videos
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