Combined Shewhart-cusum control chart for improved quality control in clinical chemistry

We describe the adaptation of the decision limit cumulative sum method (cusum) to internal quality control in clinical chemistry. With the decision limit method, the cusum is interpreted against a numerical limit, rather than by use of a V-mask. The method can be readily implemented in computerized quality-control systems or manually on controls charts. We emphasize the manual application here and demonstrate how the technique can be implemented on existing Shewhart or Levey-Jennings control charts. This permits both cusum and Shewhart control rules to be used simultaneously on a single control chart and also minimizes the data calculations necessary for the cusum method. Computer simulation studies are used to determine the performance characteristics of several different cusum rules, alone and in combination with a Shewhart rule. These studies indicate that improvements in existing quality-control systems should be possible by addition of this simple cusum method and by use of a combined Shewhart-cusum control chart. This should be particularly advantageous when introducing the cusum method in laboratories with manual quality-control systems.