Patient-Based Real-Time Quality Control: Review and Recommendations

Area of Science:

• Clinical Chemistry
• Laboratory Medicine
• Quality Control

Background:

• Patient-based quality control (QC) is established in hematology but underutilized in clinical chemistry due to complexity.
• Conventional QC methods have limitations, driving the need for advanced techniques.
• Patient-based QC requires optimization for specific populations and analytes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To provide guidance for implementing patient-based QC systems in clinical laboratories.
• To describe the essential components of a patient-based QC system.
• To highlight the benefits of patient-based QC for detecting analytical errors.

Main Methods:

• Overview of patient-based QC system components: calculation algorithm, block size, truncation limits, and control limits.
• Discussion on optimizing patient-based QC using laboratory-specific patient data.
• Focus on population-based parameters for real-time quality control.

Main Results:

• Patient-based QC systems can reliably detect systematic errors.
• Optimization minimizes false alarms, enhancing QC efficiency.
• Population-based parameters are key for real-time analytical error detection.

Conclusions:

• Patient-based QC is a valuable tool for clinical chemistry laboratories.
• Implementation requires careful system design and optimization.
• This approach enhances the reliability of laboratory testing.