Practical solution for control of the pre-analytical phase in decentralized clinical laboratories for meeting the requirements of the medical laboratory accreditation standard DIN EN ISO 15189.

This report was written in response to the article by Wood published recently in this journal. It describes a practical solution to the problems of controlling the pre-analytical phase in the clinical diagnostic laboratory. As an indicator of quality in the pre-analytical phase of sample processing, a target analyte was chosen which is sensitive to delay in centrifugation and/or analysis.