The August issue of Pathology in Practice saw the third in a series of articles on measurement uncertainty (MU) by Stephen MacDonald, in which he considered standard uncertainty, where all contributors are expressed in a common currency. In the fourth article in this important series, scheduled to appear in the November issue, he will be walking through uncertainty budgeting with internal quality control (IQC) as the major contributor. This will be applicable to a large portion of the assays in every laboratory’s repertoire, and will compare a number of different (but related) methods for determining the MU. In the fifth and following article, Stephen will approach MU in assays where multiple inputs contribute to uncertainty.
So far in this series, Stephen has defined what is being measured (the measurand), identified what contributors are most influential to our overall uncertainty (modelling), and then expressed all contributors to MU in a common currency (standard uncertainty).