EQA Benefits for Laboratories: From IVD Verification to Staff Competence Monitoring
This comprehensive review details how external quality assessment programs serve participating laboratories beyond routine performance checks, including verification and validation of IVD medical devices, estimation of measurement uncertainty, and documented staff competence monitoring. The authors cover benefits for diverse participants from medical labs and POCT users to national metrology institutes and reference laboratories, making the case that EQA is a multifunctional quality tool.
The original study
Behind the scenes of EQA–characteristics, capabilities, benefits and assets of external quality assessment (EQA): Part IV – Benefits for participant laboratories.
- Authors
- Buchta C, De la Salle B, Marrington R, Albarède S, Badrick T, Bicker W, et al.
- Journal
- Clinical chemistry and laboratory medicine
- Type
- Journal Article, Review
- PMID
- 39754494
Original abstract
The main stakeholders in external quality assessment (EQA) programs are the participants, in whose interests these challenges are ultimately organised. EQA schemes in the medical field contribute to improving the quality of patient care by evaluating the analytical and diagnostic quality of laboratory and point-of-care tests (POCT) by independent third parties and, if necessary, pointing out erroneous measurement results and analytical or diagnostic improvement potential. Other benefits include the option of using EQA samples for other important laboratory procedures, such as the verification or validation of in vitro diagnostic medical devices (IVD-MDs), a contribution to the estimation of measurement uncertainty, a means of training and educating laboratory staff through educational EQA programmes or samples, or even for independent and documented monitoring of staff competence, such as on samples with unusual or even exceptional characteristics. Participation in an EQA scheme for beneficiaries like medical, microbiological and histo- and molecular pathology laboratories, users of POCT and self-testing systems as well as National Metrology Institutes, calibration laboratories and reference laboratories that are dedicated to specific tasks and have particular expectations of the EQA scheme are presented here.