Behind the scenes of EQA-characteristics, capabilities, benefits and assets of external quality assessment (EQA).

The main stakeholders in external quality assessment (EQA) programs are the participants, in whose interests these challenges are ultimately organised. EQA schemes in the medical field contribute to improving the quality of patient care by evaluating the analytical and diagnostic quality of laboratory and point-of-care tests (POCT) by independent third parties and, if necessary, pointing out erroneous measurement results and analytical or diagnostic improvement potential. Other benefits include the option of using EQA samples for other important laboratory procedures, such as the verification or validation of diagnostic medical devices (IVD-MDs), a contribution to the estimation of measurement uncertainty, a means of training and educating laboratory staff through educational EQA programmes or samples, or even for independent and documented monitoring of staff competence, such as on samples with unusual or even exceptional characteristics.

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The Swiss Center for Quality Control organizes external quality assessment schemes for medical laboratories as well as biological monitoring of the sterilization process for autoclaves. Over the period from 2008 to 2012, 209 dental offices performed 4,709 sterilizations of biological indicators – strips covered by Geobacillus stearothermophilus spores. The median number of sterilizations per participant was 20.

Retrospective analysis of 55,769 HbA1c EQA results obtained from professional laboratories and medical offices participating in surveys organized by two European EQA centers over a nine-year period.

External Quality Assessment (EQA) is an essential tool for laboratories to monitor the performances of their analyses. It also allows a comparison of methods and types of laboratories (professional laboratories vs. medical offices).

Retrospective analysis of 88,429 serum and urine glucose EQA results obtained from professional laboratories and medical offices participating in surveys organized by three European EQA centers between 1996 and 2007.

Background: The aim of this study was to provide inter-laboratory imprecision comparisons of different groups of diagnostic systems as well as a comparison of professional laboratories with medical offices performance on the basis of 88,429 glucose results obtained in external quality assessment (EQA) schemes organized by three European EQA centers between 1996 and 2007.

Methods: A simple, non-parametrical statistical model suited to all EQA results, including outliers, was used to calculate yearly and global performance.

Results: The best performance was obtained from professional laboratories with a group of three diagnostic systems--Hitachi, Integra, and Vitros, followed by Cobas Mira, and finally by Reflotron.

External quality control results of urine dip-slide devices.

Urinary tract infections are frequently diagnosed by using urine dip-slide devices, especially in medical practices and small laboratories. We performed a retrospective analysis of more than 3000 results obtained by several urine dip-slide devices during external quality control surveys. We found that an underestimation of bacterial counts and a difficulty in identifying mixed flora were relatively more frequent in medical practices than in specialized laboratories, and that regular participation in external quality control surveys correlates with better performances.