RESUMEN
In a recent publication, the effect of the length of time between the routine testing of quality-control (QC) samples on QC performance was studied using a newly proposed performance measure: the average number of patient samples that contain unacceptable analytic error due to an out-of-control error condition (ANPTE). We show that ANPTE also perfectly suits the evaluation of patient-based QC procedures. We used ANPTE to study the effect of the number of patient results averaged and the width of the truncation limits on an average of normals QC procedure. Estimates of ANPTE were obtained by using computer simulations that use actual patient result distributions. Based on ANPTE, the conclusions about the effects of truncation limits and number of patient results averaged on the performance of an average of normals QC procedure are substantially different from those described by others using the probability of error detection to characterize QC performance.