Improvement of interpretation in cystic fibrosis clinical laboratory reports: longitudinal analysis of external quality assessment data.

ABSTRACT: Participation in external quality assessment (EQA) is a key element of quality assurance in medical laboratories. In genetics EQA, both genotyping and interpretation are assessed. We aimed to analyse changes in the completeness of interpretation in clinical laboratory reports of the European cystic fibrosis EQA scheme and to investigate the effect of the number of previous participations, laboratory accreditation/certification status, setting and test volume. We distributed similar versions of mock clinical cases to eliminate the influence of the difficulty of the clinical question on interpretation performance: a cystic fibrosis patient (case 1) and a cystic fibrosis carrier (case 2). We then performed a retrospective longitudinal study of reports over a 6-year period from 298 participant

SUBMITTER: Berwouts S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3499747 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature