Far too many laboratories consider proficiency testing just a necessary evil, little more than periodic pass–fail exercises we perform solely to meet regulatory requirements. In addition, too many of us belittle point-ofcare (POC) testing as a passing fad, a technology so inferior to what we use in our own laboratories that it hardly warrants our attention. Clearly, a report that combines these...

For the personalized learning, a good testing method, which can effectively estimate a learner’s proficiency, is required. In this paper, we propose a novel testing method, Bayesian network-based approach to Computerized Adaptive Testing (CAT). Our novel approach can estimate proficiency of the examinee effectively and efficiently because it reflects complicated relationships between all items ...

Aflatoxins, mycotoxins of fungi of the Aspergillus sp., pose a risk to consumer health and are, therefore, regulated by more than 100 countries. To facilitate method development and validation as well as assessment of measurement capabilities, availability of certified reference materials and proficiency testing schemes is important. For these purposes, highly accurate determinations of the afl...

Federal authority over clinical laboratories began in 1966 when Medicare independent-laboratory regulations established personnel standards for laboratories that participated in the Medicare and Medicaid programs. The following year, Congress enacted the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act of 1967, known as ‘tCLIA ‘67,” which required licensure for laboratories testing patients’ specimens in in...

The validation of diagnostic methods (and the subsequent results generated by a laboratory) are improved through participation in inter-laboratory comparisons (IC), such as proficiency-testing (PT) programmes and other exercises referred to ‘ring tests’ or trials’ (RTs). This is requirement comply with international quality standards. Validating method continuous process taking part ongoing PT ...

INTRODUCTION Health laboratory services are a critical component of national health systems but face major operational challenges in resource-limited (RL) settings. New funding for health systems strengthening in RL countries has increased the demand for diagnostics and provided opportunities to address these constraints. An approach to sustainably strengthen national laboratory systems in sub-...

In December 1987, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) proposed to the Health Care Financing Administration revised criteria for evaluating participating laboratories' performance in proficiency-testing programs. If these criteria are accepted, they will become the minimum standard for all regulatory proficiency-testing programs. To evaluate a laboratory's performance in a clinical chemistry p...