The next in this series of articles on individual aspects of the assessment of uncertainty of measurement sees Stephen MacDonald consider the role of internal quality control, the most commonly used method, and provides some examples in straightforward assays.
In this the fourth in our series of articles we approach the most commonly used method to determine measurement uncertainty (MU) in pathology laboratories. In the next and fifth article we will approach the less simple assays, but for now will focus on imprecision as the determinant of our MU. The theoretical implications of the different methods will be discussed later. The assumptions made in this article are that:
This is a convenient conclusion to arrive at but not one that should be taken lightly. In doing so we are excluding a wide range of contributory factors that may influence our result (eg interanalyser variability, reproducibility, cross site comparability). If our measurand is being measured in a single assay system (analyser etc) at a single site we can justifiably use only IQC for that assay.
All laboratories run IQC to monitor the performance of their assays. Be it on a daily, per run or per sample basis, IQC provides us with valuable information about how our assays are performing. Laboratories are accustomed to setting performance limits for their assays so they can reliably provide patient results.
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