Annual Report on the External Quality Assessment Scheme in Clinical Chemistry in Korea (2013) / 임상검사와정도관리

ABSTRACT

The Clinical Chemistry subcommittee of the Korean Association for Quality Assurance for Clinical Laboratory conducted external quality assessments in 2013. This included general chemistry and blood gas measurements as part of a scheme of six trials, comprising of three samples each. All control materials were sent at the same time. The overall response rates were 90.8% for general chemistry and 88.0% for blood gas. The parameters tested included sodium, potassium, chloride, blood urea nitrogen, glucose, calcium, phosphorus, uric acid, creatinine, bilirubin, total protein, albumin, total cholesterol, triglyceride, AST, ALT, alkaline phosphatase, lactate dehydrogenase, and gamma glutamyl transferase for general chemistry and pH, pCO2, and pO2 for blood gas assessment. Two types of reports were generated, namely, method summary reports including mean, standard deviation, and coefficient of variation, according to the test method as well as result summary reports of each participating laboratory, including mean, standard deviation and number of peer groups, and standard deviation index and variance index score of each laboratory. The overall quality performance in 2013 was similar to that of previous years, and as compared to results from 2012, the inter-laboratory variation had decreased. The requisite continual improvement in quality of clinical chemistry testing can be achieved through participation in similar proficiency testing programs.