The Importance of Quality Assurance Practices, Proficiency Testing, and Integrity of Laboratory Test Results
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Abstract
This paper explains the important role of quality assurance practices in generating accurate and reliable laboratory test data. Specification conformance or product performance, as evidenced by laboratory test results, has an economically significant bearing on the users and clients of these services. Uplifting the general understanding of the science behind proficiency testing practices and the methods for expressing uncertainty in test results is the public goods aspect of this essay. The paper offers two important lessons for stakeholders and managers of quality control and quality assurance within the mechanics of proficiency testing in the laboratory industry. First, it is only by regularly conducting proficiency testing that any laboratory can provide compelling evidence of its technical competence. Second, differences in performance can sometimes detect that the reliability of test data within the laboratory has been compromised. People have casually confused accuracy with reliability; the two terms are well defined in national and international standards. Newspapers run big stories on the accuracy of test data when, in actual fact, they are talking about reliability, implying that accuracy can only be challenged when the certified values are too close to a given test method's limits of detection or quantification. Policymakers who support private sector testing services without funding activities to train, develop, and upskill laboratory managers and staff not only can undermine the confidence users have in this body of scientific results but also make these bodies of scientific facts irrelevant to their countries' socio-economic and legal specifications. (Brander et al.2020)