Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
As many of you know, EQC is out and IQCP is in. As the expiration date for EQC approaches in 2016, labs need to learn more ab
out Risk QC and IQCPs. CMS has an email address where you can send questions.
We tried out the question and answer line with CMS, see the results after the jump...
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Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
During my travels, I came across this at a laboratory which shall remain anonymous, where they are required by ISO 15189 to report measurement uncertainty to their clinicians:
If you can't read that interpretive comment, I'll spell it out after the jump...
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Posted by Sten Westgard, MS [with apologies in advance*]
Take the "Low QC" Quiz to see if your laboratory is suffering from this new condition...
- Do you have a decrease in your desire to QC?
- Do you have a general lack of energy at work caused by QC?
- Have you noticed a decrease in your enjoyment of life, possibly due to QC?
- Are you sad and/or grumpy about QC?
- Has there been a recent deterioration in your ability to trouble-shoot QC?
Answers, after the jump...
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Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
We've all heard the infamous quote now over a decade and a half old: that US hospitals kill between roughly 40,000 and 90,000 patients each year. This was an estimate courtesy of the Institute of Medicine report "To Err Is Human" which made the dire performance of hospitals knowledge that even the general public could understand.
But more recently, studies have been tracking the adverse event rates much more closely. A recent NEJM paper followed four conditions from 2005 to 2011.
Of these four conditions, which do you think has the best Sigma performance when it comes to the occurrence of adverse events?
A. Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI)
B. Congestive Heart Failure
C. Pneumonia
D. (other) Conditions Requiring Surgery
The answer, after the jump...
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Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
On August 16th of this year, CMS issued a new memo about IQCPs. If you recall, IQCP stands for Individualized Quality Control Plan, and it's part of the new Risk QC being proposed by CMS as a replacement for EQC. The CLSI guideline EP23, which came out about two years ago, laid out the broad outlines of this new policy, but we have been waiting for the government regulations to spell out the specifics of implementation and interpretation.
Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
In a recent issue of CCLM, an interesting opinion paper reported on a pilot study of the quality of UK laboratories.
Given 5,812 QC data points on 5 different platforms in 9 different laboratories measured over 6 months, and a quality goal of 7.0% how many of those laboratories do you think achieved 5-Sigma quality?
- 100%
- 75%
- 50%
- 25%
- less than 25%
The answer, after the jump...
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Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
A lot of interesting studies coming out this month, unfortunately none of them with encouraging news about the US healthcare system.
The latest, from Sunil Eappen, MD, Atul Gawande, MD et al, Relationship Between Occurence of Surgical Complications and Hospital Finances, JAMA, April 17, 2013, Vol. 309, No. 15 1599-1606
Take a guess: do US hospitals make more money when things go wrong, or less?
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Posted by Sten Westgard, MLO
In the November 2012 MLO magazine there is an intriguing article by Roy Midyett, a hematology supervisor, titled "Empty QC"
Here's how Mr. Midyett defines "Empty QC":
"Empty QC is any nominal QC that does not give techs performing the test any more confidence than they would have without the QC, and has by logic or experience, no influence on the reporting of the test."
Is Mr. Midyett correct? Have our QC procedures become meaningless gestures? More after the jump.
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Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
So here's a Normalized Method Decision chart for a cholesterol method.
Which method would you choose?
Posted by Sten Westgard, MS