Sharing knowledge is the key to more accurate laboratory testing, and also for longer-term, better patient outcomes. Scheme Directors Melody Tabiner and Richard Haggas reveal the many and varied ways in which UK NEQAS shares its expert knowledge.
From supporting research by global health organisations, to producing guidelines for institutions, UK NEQAS is improving the accuracy of diagnostic testing by putting education at the heart of EQA services. Operating in over 175 countries, we are unashamedly proud of our EQA programmes. So proud that we want to share our expertise and findings widely; so that collaboratively, every laboratory, every centre, every clinician, and every scientist can work better for the benefit of patients.
External quality assessment is a means of assessing the effectiveness of laboratory quality assurance procedures by distributing known but undisclosed specimens or specifically designed online case scenarios, and assessing the results benchmarked against equivalent laboratories and methodologies. It is an efficient, external, unbiased and independent assessment of laboratory processes at a single moment in time that delivers assurance to clinicians and patients that the information they receive is as accurate as it can be.
The EQA programmes operated by UK NEQAS are a mixture of qualitative, quantitative and interpretative programmes that are open to all laboratory types: clinical, research and industrial, and they are available worldwide, encompassing what is probably the biggest EQA network in the world. As a registered charity, all programmes are operated on a not-for-profit basis, are designed by experts in the relevant clinical field, and are created to educate participants rather than be punitive.
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