Preanalytical errors are said to be the reason for up to 75 % [1] of all errors in laboratory medicine. The diagnostic consequences depend on the magnitude of the preanalytical error.  In worst case, these errors may lead to mistreatment of patients; in all cases, these errors are an extra workload for the hospital...

Although blood glucose measurement is commonly performed, the use of a whole-blood sample introduces complications and compromise in terms of the assay principle, the method of calibration and the expression of results. Most point-of-care systems are calibrated against a method chosen by the manufacturer for...

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.

According to the Hvidovre Hospital, standardizing is a must if POCT is to run optimally. In the first article of the series "POCT setups for blood gas", acutecaretesting.org interviews the Danish hospital on how they have successfully implemented POCT.

When performing method comparisons, it is important to address a number of preparatory and preanalytical issues to ensure that comparisons solely reflect the analytical differences between the two methods in question. This article provides preparatory and preanalytical checklists that can be used when comparing two...

Preparing for an accreditation inspection is often synonymous with carts full of paper. For some labs, though, the paper hassle associated with accreditation is now history. These labs are letting their data management systems do all the work.

John Severinghaus, who recently turned 80, is one of the pioneers in the field of blood gas. To celebrate his birthday, bloodgas.org has asked him to look back on the first developments leading to the modern blood gas analyzers. The following article has also been published in Anesthesiology, The Journal of the...

"Six Sigma" is the latest trend in quality management and is being widely implemented in business and industry today. Six Sigma represents an evolution of Total Quality Management (TQM), providing a more quantitative framework for evaluating process performance and clearer goals for process improvement. The...

Both high and low blood glucose levels may be dangerous to the newborn baby. Measurement of blood or plasma lactate concentrations gives an indication of the adequacy of oxygen delivery to tissues, and blood and CSF lactate levels are essential investigations in the diagnosis of inborn errors of metabolism (IEM)....