Analytical Quality (C-AQ)

Membership

Name Position Country Term Time in Office
E. Amann Co-Chair DE 1st 2011 01 - 2013 12
J. Gill Co-Chair AU 1st 2011 01 - 2013 12
D. Bullock  Member UK 2nd 2011 01 - 2013 12
M.G. Scott Member US 1st 2010 02 - 2012 12
A. Vaussalt  Member FR 2nd 2011 01 - 2013 12

Terms of reference

  1. To provide education and training on the various aspects of analytical quality in the clinical laboratory which include:
    - methods and instrument validation
    - traceability concepts
    - measurement uncertainty
    - internal quality control procedures
    - external quality assessment programmes
  2. To ensure proper control of pre-analytical & post-analytical variables
  3. To address the educational and training needs of emerging nations on analytical quality
  4. Education and training will be provided in many ways including:
    - written material
    - electronic teaching
    - workshops and seminars
    - invited lectures
    - consultations
  5. To collaborate with other IFCC committees or working groups to achieve these aims

Running projects

Serum Donation Project (SDP)

This project is aimed to help candidate EQAS organizers in developing countries for establishing new External Quality Assessment Schemes or support existing ones by provision of donated control serum . To apply for the project, a commitment of the National Society of the country requiring the project shall exist.

The project have been running since the end of 1997 and the countries that receive it are:
- Latin-American Region: Dominican Republic (twice) , Bolivia and Uruguay
- Iran
- India
- Bulgaria
- Lebanon

The SDP obtain the control material from different sources:

Industry:
- Latin-American Region: Bayer Corporation
- India: Roche Diagnostics

EQAS:
- DEKS (Denmark)
- PEEC (Argentina)
- Scientific Institute of Public Health (Belgium)

New applicants

The form for requesting the project could be found in EQAnews #8, page 16, 1997, or see attachment.

New donations

A call will be made to manufacturers and EQAS organizers to donate surplus of control material. A list of candidate countries is needed.

NRLEM

A network of Reference Laboratories for Enzyme Measurements, NRLEM, has been established between Germany and Argentina. Argentina is assigning reference values for AST and ALT. Through the generous donation of DGKC, GGT will be the next enzyme to work on.

Courses

Training for self-preparation of control materials for EQAS

Course on preparation of control materials was held on October 2001 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. There is a need to offer this type of course on a regional basis.

Training course for EQAS Organization and Management

4th course on organization and administration of EQAS was held in Buenos Aires, Argentina September 8-10, 2002

EQAP guidelines

As there is no specific guidance document for quality management of EQAP in medical laboratories, the IFCC analytical quality committee prepared this guidance document based on ILAC G13 http://www.ilac.org/

The document, Guidelines for the Requirements for the Competence of External Quality Assessment Programs (EQAP) Organizers, is open for discussion. All comments and suggestions are welcomed. Please contact jean-claude.libeer@iph.fgov.be

EQAP Version 3

Releted project

IMEP-17 is an interlaboratory comparison study of the Institute Reference Materials and Measurements (IRMM), http://www.irmm.jrc.be./, based on control sera (prepared by DEKS), whose reference values were certified by a number of Reference Laboratories around the world.

C-AQ endorsed the project. 

Meeting activities

An External Quality Assurance meeting, held by C-AQ and sponsored by IFCC-EMD, took place in the ICCC-Kyoto on October 2002. Four presentations were given by Daniel Mazziotta, Jean-Claude Libeer, Gerhard Schumann and Robert Rej.

Publications

Fundamentals for External Quality Assessment (EQA)

Educational material

EQAS Course

Useful software for download

Software for Internal Quality Control

Other links

http://www.who.int
http://www.westgard.com/
http://www.eqalm.org/
http://www.phppo.cdc.gov/mlp/EQA.asp

C-AQ Corresponding Members

Committee Co-Chairs' contacts:

Prof. Egon AMANN
Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics Products GmbH
Quality Systems & Compliance, Building M545
Emil-von-Behring-Str. 76
35041 Marburg
Germany
e-mail: egon.amann@siemens.com

Dr. Janice GILL
RCPA - Quality Assurance Programs Pty Ltd
207 Albion Street
Surry Hills NSW 2010
Australia
e-mail: jan.gill@rcpaqap.com.au