Reasons for proficiency testing failures in clinical chemistry and blood gas analysis: a College of American Pathologists Q-Probes study in 665 laboratories.

Abstract

Individual analyte PT failure is a common event in the participating laboratories, but failures in successive or alternate events are rare. Analysis of the reasons for failed events indicates that most identified reasons occurred in either the Methodologic or Technical categories (50.9%). Analysis of the failure types suggested investigation pathways based on the magnitude of the failure that could reduce the 25.7% rate of unexplained failures.