An inter-laboratory quality-assurance survey of emergency clinical biochemistry tests

One hundred and thirteen Australian laboratories participated in a state-of-the-art quality-assurance survey of emergency clinical biochemistry tests. Two liquid-reconstituted lyophilised human-based serum samples, which had previously been analysed in the national general serum chemistry programme, were sent by air cargo, together with their own previously completed request forms, for analysis as emergency tests on a previously nominated date. The standard of performance of ten of the eleven most commonly performed tests was inferior to that obtained on a routine basis, as judged by the number of results outside present limits of total laboratory error from target values which had been previously set by reference laboratories. The standard of analytical performance achieved for emergency tests can and should be improved.