External Quality Assessment (EQA) in medical laboratories have evolved over the past 50 years to provide more sophisticated systems compared with the simple participants’ analytical performance evaluation of earlier years.  There are clear distinctions between the proficiency testing schemes and the evolved External...

That is the question the Hvidovre Hospital had to ask itself in May 2003, when the Danish National Board of Health and the Copenhagen Hospital Corporation appointed it to be one of the country's three key sites for receiving and treating SARS patients. Once appointed, the hospital began a painstaking process of...

Evaluation of the quality of the total testing process of a laboratory is very important to assure that the results supplied by the laboratory are correct and can be used for decisions by the personnel ordering the tests. In this paper Proficiency Testing (PT) or External Quality Assessment (EQA) is described. PT is...

Non-invasive monitoring of oxygenation has become a standard procedure in neonatal critical care. Both transcutaneous pO₂ (tcpO₂) monitors and pulse oximeters involve methodological and practical issues that should be known to those using these devices in infants. tcpO₂ measurements are influenced by skin thickness, ...

Like many hospitals throughout the world, the Princess Royal Hospital in Sussex, England has set up a quality assurance (QA) scheme to verify the competency of glucose-meter operators. Their scoring system, however is anything but typical. Instead of relying solely on individual results, the system also uses...

Danish neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) are known throughout the world for practicing minimal handling. Because it is non-invasive, transcutaneous monitoring of pO₂ and pCO₂ plays an important role in this setup. acutecaretesting.org has interviewed Professor Gorm Greisen, MD, Dr. Med. Sci., and Head of the...

England's Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals have a POCT system they consider a success. This is a roadmap of the steps they have taken.

In 1948, Singer and Hastings introduced the concept of buffer base (BB). The change in BB from "normal" was called deltaBB (ΔBB). This change in BB was an expression of the non-respiratory (metabolic) component of an acid-base disturbance. This was the first approximation to base excess. In the 1950s, Astrup and...

Since Meakins in 1927 described the relationship between increased blood lactate levels and the presence of oxygen debt (tissue hypoxia) in patients with circulatory shock [1], lactate levels have been used to diagnose and monitor the treatment of these patients. However, as lactate is a normal (end) product of...

Since the mid 1990's Point of Care Testing (POCT) has been viewed as a solution to a declared need for Short Turn Around Testing (STAT).  However, is it being utilized in a way that meets the needs of improving patient care and hospital quality assurance? What is STAT testing, why and how did it become POCT? How is...