The Westgard Rules

What's New at Westgard Web: April 2018

Posted by sten Westgard, MS

What's On Westgard Web?

The 2018 Westgard Award goes to...

At the Quality in the Spotlight Meeting in Antwerp, Dr. Erna Lenters-Westra was the recipient of the 2018 Westgard Award. Her outstanding accomplishments in the field of HbA1c evaluation and assessment make this award well-deserved. .

The "Lenters-Westra" Rules of Evaluating HbA1c

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Evaluating the cobas b 101 HbA1c method


Taking Dr. Erna Lenters-Westra rules into account, we review a recent study of the cobas b 101 HbA1c Analyzer. When evaluated on CAP standards, IFCC standards, and "Westra-Rules", does this instrument achieve any level of acceptability?

Is the b 101 going to achieve Grade A for HbA1c?
 

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Evaluation of the JEOL BioMajesty BM6010-C clinical chemistry analyzer


Are there other choices than the "big 5" diagnostic analyzers? Beyond Beckman, After Abbott, Roche, Siemens, and OCD, are there viable alternatives for chemistry analyzers? We take a look at a new automated clinical chemistry analyzer, evaluating both its "closed" and "open" reagent performance.

Should you be open-minded to this new analyzer, or should you close the door on considering its performance?
 

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Evaluation of the i-Smart 300 Blood Gas Analyzer


A new cartridge-type blood gas analyzer, the i-Smart 300, was assessed in a traditional method validation study.

When Six Sigma is the standard, is selecting this POC instrument a smart choice?
 

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Congratulations, 2nd Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University

The Medical Laboratory of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University has become the first Sigma Verified institution in Yunnan province.

Two chemistry instruments from the Second Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University

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Congratulations, Shenzhen Nanshan District People's General Hospital 



The Sixth People's Hospital of Shenzhen - also known as Shenzhen Nanshan District People's Hospital - becomes the largest Sigma Verification in China. Seven different instruments and more than 50 different assays are verified, almost entirely Six Sigma quality.

Shenzhen Nanshan District People's General Hospital

More Amusement from Antwerp

Posted by Sten Westgard, MS

The Quality in the Spotlight meeting is not just notable for its Westgard Award, for its Limerick Contest, but there are also lectures you will hear at this meeting that you'll never hear elsewhere. The other conferences play the politics, give only the most official, approved lectures. Quality in the Spotlight is a chance to hear some unvarnished truth.

Hassan Bayat gave a lecture explaining how to convert Curt Parvin's model into a practical tool: nomograms that can visually determine the QC frequency. His grasp of the MaxE(Nuf) model is probably second only to Curt Parvin - and I found his lecture to be one of the most understandable on the subject.

For us, it was a great chance to meet Hassan - we had collaborated on a paper but hadn't had a face to face meeting while we were writing it. This is one of those wonders of the Internet age. But it's always better to spend time together in person.

Dr. Nuthar Jassam also provided an excellent overview of the evolving application of allowable total error in the UK and Europe.

 

New Paper on MU, TE, and the unnecessary struggle

Posted by Sten Westgard, MS

"The" Westgard has a new editorial out in Clinical Chemistry, commenting on the latest developments in the debate on the use of measurement uncertainty (MU) and analytical total error (TE). This debate has flared up from time to time over the past two decades. We had recently reached a detente, if not an accord, in the work of the Task Finishing Group on Total Error, convened in the wake of the Milan 2014 meeting (which generated the Milan 2015 Consensus Hierarchy on Analytical Performance Specifications). Since that time, however, it appears MU advocates have continued to argue for the eradication of TE. We're not about to let that go unchallenged.

It's worth noting that, on our part, we are not making a similar counter-argument - that MU should be eliminated completely. Instead, we believe there is very helpful role that MU can play with manufacturing, but that MU is just not that helpful at the bench level. We prefer both MU and TE to complement one another, not compete against each other. It's disheartening to see that the two parameters forced into a fight for existence by more purist metrologists.

http://clinchem.aaccjnls.org/content/early/2018/01/04/clinchem.2017.284406 (subscription required)

The 2018 Lab Limerick Winners!

Posted by Sten Westgard, MS

As several people know, the highlight of the Antwerp Quality in the Spotlight conference is not the Westgard Award, but the "Limerick Challenge" of the evening dinner.

In 2016, there was a scandalous episode of nepotism, which resulted in the winning team containing not only myself ("a" Westgard) but also Jochem Goldschmidt ("a" Goldschmidt, son of the conference organizer). Thus, we received lifetime bans from participating in future Limerick contests. And founds ourselves running the Limerick as Quiz Masters this year.

Since the overall theme of the conference this year was "next generation" - that, too, became the theme of the Limerick contest.

Here myself and Jochem on the right are presenting the prize (a bottle of champagne, to be consumed that evening)

After the jump... the winners and the winning limerick