Analysis of 15 quality indicators in clinical laboratory in Zhejiang province

Objective To establish and apply the procedure of survey on quality indicator in clinical laboratory and to analyze the status in quo of the 15 quality indicators in Zhejiang province. Methods A network platform for the survey on quality indicator in clinical laboratory was designed and developed by our center. The online questionnaires that should be reported back within one month were assigned to 473 laboratories.The developed software and SPSS 13.0 were used for statistical analysis. 13 indicators expressed in rate were further evaluated with sigma scales. The 25th percentile, 50th percentile, and 75th percentile of the distribution of each quality indicator were regarded as the minimum, appropriate and optimum quality specifications, respectively. Results Totally 444 laboratories submitted the survey results. The overall sigma levels of 10/13 indicators were all > 3, of which the inappropriate CV of internal quality control and unacceptable performances in EQA were still less than 3σin 15.8% and 9.2% of the laboratories. The rates of quality indicators in different scales of laboratories and diverse disciplines were significantly different.Pre-analytical TAT in routine examination for clinical chemistry and immunology was 50 min, on average.And the time for routine examination of blood, urine and stool was 30 min. Pre-analytical TAT in emergency examination for all four disciplines were all between 10 and 15 min. Intra-analytical TAT for clinical immunology was the longest, which was 154 min for routine examination and 40 min for emergency examination, respectively. The optimum quality specifications for 8 indicators were 6σ, while the minimum quality specifications were less than 1σfor 4 indicators. Conclusions According to the results of our survey, the pre-analytical quality indicator perform better than that of Intra-analytical and post-analytical phase. The laboratory should strengthen the laboratory information system technology construction to ensure the reliable data collection and long-time monitoring.(Chin J Lab Med, 2016, 39: 23-28) Key words: Quality indicators, health care; Questionnaires; Laboratories; Quality control; Benchmarking