Performance of community blood glucose meters in calgary, alberta: an analysis of quality assurance data.

Objective: The self-monitoring of blood glucose plays a critical role in management of diabetes mellitus. Although laboratory comparisons of glucose meter accuracy are often acceptable, clinical comparisons show frequent inaccuracies. In this paper, we evaluate the accuracy of self-monitoring blood glucose meters using glucose meter and serum comparisons from a large Canadian laboratory.
Methods: This study was performed using secondary data obtained from the Laboratory Information System of Calgary Services, the sole provider of laboratory testing to Calgary and surrounding areas. We examined anonymous quality assurance data for glucose meter comparisons performed on home glucose meters between January 1, 2010, and April 30, 2013.
Results: A total of 39 542 comparisons were recorded on 18 540 different subjects. Overall, 6.7% of differences were greater than the current International Standards Organization standard of 15%, and 3.7% exceeded the Canadian guideline of 20%.
Conclusions: Glucose meter checks were infrequently performed (on average, once per 1.6 years). A significant subset of meter results was inaccurate.
(Copyright © 2014 Canadian Diabetes Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)