Quality control of laboratory results in real time.

An integrated informatic system may have an important role in identifying and reducing those errors which affect the reliability of laboratory results. The present work reports on the development of a system that, by means of a computer connected with laboratory instrumentation, allows monitoring of global error (bias, random, gross) using classical statistical quality control systems, integrated by auxiliary methods built on a database stored in the computer. These methods succeeded in greatly reducing bias and random error in the most frequent laboratory tests. Further methods to find, quantify, and reduce the gross and extra-analytical errors are under development.