1. External quality assessment schemes for inorganic elements in the clinical laboratory: Lessons from the OELM scheme.
- Author
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Arnaud J, Patriarca M, Fofou-Caillierez BM, González-Estecha M, Gómez MG, De Graaf I, Patriarca V, Ropert-Bouchet M, Schröer-Janssen L, Siebelder C, Te Winkel M, Ventura Alemany M, and Weykamp C
- Subjects
- Humans, Environmental Medicine, Laboratories, Occupational Medicine, Quality Assurance, Health Care, Trace Elements analysis
- Abstract
Measurements of inorganic elements in clinical laboratories produce results used for the diagnosis, the treatment and the monitoring of deficiencies or overloads. The main objective of External Quality Assessment Schemes is to verify, on a regular frequency, that clinical laboratory results correspond to the quality requirement for patient care. Therefore, External Quality Assessment Schemes represent an essential component of a laboratory's quality management system. However, External Quality Assessment Schemes within the same analytical field remain heterogeneous for different reasons such as samples, determination of assigned value, acceptable limits, content of the reports. The aim of this review was to describe and illustrate some major critical aspects of External Quality Assessment Schemes based on Occupational and Environmental Laboratory Medicine external quality assessment scheme experience., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors are either employees from public institutions (J Arnaud, I De Graaf, MB Fofou-Caillierez, M González-Estecha, M Patriarca, V Patriarca, M Ropert-Bouchet, L Schröer-Janssen, C Siebelder, M Te Winkel, C Weykamp) or from non-governmental non-profit associations (MC González Gómez, M Ventura Alemany). They do not receive any financial support linked to the OELM scheme. The participating laboratory annual fees are managed by a public institution in Italy: Istituto Superiore di Sanita (ISS) or non-governmental non-profit associations in the other countries: Societé Francaise de Toxicologie Analytique (SFTA) for France, Stichting Kwaliteits Bewaking Medische Laboratoria (SKML) for the Netherlands and Sociedad Española de Medicina de Laboratorio (SEQC(ML)) for Spain. The examples that illustrate this review are based on objective analyses of OELM data or on past published research reports., (Copyright © 2019. Published by Elsevier GmbH.)
- Published
- 2020
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