Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
New! Basic Quality Management Systems
Westgard QC is proud to announce the publication of its tenth reference manual: Basic Quality Management Systems. For laboratories in the US, it's become abundantly clear that compliance is not the path to competitiveness. For labs that want to distinguish themselves from their rivals, a higher level of quality must be achieved, an approach that doesn't tackle different processes piecemeal, but assembles them all into one coherent system: a Quality System. Dr. Westgard explains the ISO 15189 standard, the CLSI guidelines, the WHO/CDC training tools, and more, in this plain-language, practical guide to quality management.
Is your lab ready to upgrade from compliance to a culture of continuous improvement?
Download the Preface, Table of Contents, Chapter Excerpts and Index of the new book
The Quality of HbA1c in 2014, Part 2
Continuing in our analysis of the 2014 Lenters-Westra and Slingerland study on HbA1c quality for POC devices, Dr. Westgard digs into the data on the performance of 7 different point-of-care HbA1c devices and measures their performance on the Sigma Scale. Using a Sigma-metric Method Decision Chart, you can make an easy visual assessment of which methods assure the quality of the intended use of the test. In 2010, Lenters-Westra and Slingerland looked 8 different POC devices and the Decision chart had many methods missing the target. Has the quality of HbA1c devices gotten better since then?
How many HbA1c devices do you think can hit the bull's-eye? Or even just the outer ring of the target?
A new POC chemistry analyzer
Compact chemistry analyzers continue to be introduced into the marketplace. We take a look at a new study of the latest entry and examine the performance of 6 common chemistry tests as well as HbA1c. When authors claim that performance is "suitable" and/or "acceptable", what does that really mean? Suitable for what? Acceptable to whom? Our evaluation uses the Sigma Scale, giving an objective benchmark for the device's performance.
Do patients want results in half the time but with twice the imprecision?
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