External Quality Assessment Flashcards
This is used to describe a method that allows for comparison of a laboratory’s testing.
External Quality Management
This is the tern that is interchangeably used for EQAs.
Proficiency Testing
True or False: EQA is a system for subjective checking at a laboratory’s performance using external agencies or facilities.
False, it is objective.
This type of laboratory is practices EQA to identify problems to be corrected, help evaluate reliability, and monitor training impacts.
Individual Laboratories
This type of laboratory uses EQA to ensure results from different laboratories are comparable, accreditation, and network communication.
Public Health Testing Laboratories
These are the five (5) characteristics of EQA.
- Free or Fee
- Obligatory or Voluntary
- Organized at Different Levels
- Confidential
- May Address a Single Disease
These are programs that include manufacturers as sponsors to ensure equipment functionality and regional or national programs for quality improvement.
Free EQA Programs
This characteristic of EQA requires an accrediting body or by law.
Obligatory or Voluntary
This characteristic of EQA states that it can be held at regional, national, or international levels.
Organized at Different Levels
This characteristic of EQA states that laboratory results are only known by the participating laboratory and the EQA provider.
Confidential
An example for this characteristic of EQA is an EQA program catered for tuberculosis.
Addresses a Single Disease
This reflects the effectiveness of the laboratory’s quality management.
Successful Performance
These are three (3) methods of EQA.
- Proficiency Testing
- Rechecking or Retesting
- On-site Evaluation
This method has an external provider (reference laboratory) that sends unknown samples.
Proficiency Testing
This method makes use of slides that have been read by reference laboratories and allows for inter-laboratory comparisons.
Rechecking or Retesting
This method is done when it is difficult to conduct traditional proficiency testing.
On-site Evaluation
This is the most common type of EQA, been used for many years, and gauges the skills of medical technology.
Proficiency Testing
This is the document that described Proficiency Testing Schemes as “to assess the performance of analytical laboratories and personnel competence.”
ISO/IEC GUIDE 43-1:1997
This organization states that programs where multiple samples are sent to different laboratories for analysis and identification.
CLSI
These are examples of PT providers.
- Central Reference Laboratory
- Government Health Agencies
- Kit or Instrument Manufacturers
True or False: PT programs are done 6 times every year as its optimal frequency.
False, 3 to 4 times.
This has been used traditionally for EQA microscopic slides for AFB or HIV rapid testing.
Rechecking or Retesting
This EQA is used in conjunction with PT or Rechecking/testing and is used for AFB and HIV rapid testing.
On-site Evaluation
This is the meaning behind AFB and HIV.
Acid-fast Bacilli and Human Immunodeficiency Virus
This process is characterized by being performed on dried blood spots or serums, done by reference laboratories, and not performed as a blind process.
Retesting Process
This process is commonly used for acid-past smears and allows for the original report to be evaluated and assessment of slide preparation and staining.
Rechecking Process
This is a recommendation for all laboratories and require by the ISO 15189.
EQA Participation
This is a process that handles and analyzes EQA samples, treat EQA as patients, and leads to corrective actions.
Management Process
