Study of the analytical performance at different concentrations of hematological parameters using Spanish EQAS data.

Background External quality assessment programs are one of the currently available tools to evaluate the analytical performance of clinical laboratories, where the measurement error (ME) obtained can be compared with quality specifications to evaluate possible deviations. The objective of this work was to analyze the ME behavior over the analytical range to assess the need to establish concentration-dependent specifications. Methods A total of 389,000 results from 585 laboratories and 2628 analyzers were collected from the Spanish external quality assessment schemes (EQAS) in hematology during the years 2015-2016.