Laboratory Quality Control Materials

Achieving quality in the medical laboratory requires the use of many tools. These include procedure manuals, maintenance schedules, calibrations, a quality assurance program, training, continuing education, competency assessments, and quality control materials.

Important parts of quality control in the medical laboratory are identification of proper quality control materials, and the statistical process, used to monitor and evaluate the analytical process. The goal of quality control materials in the laboratory is to have products that are used in the same manner as patient samples so that they can help assure that the test systems are functioning appropriately and producing high quality patient results.

In this workbook, the background and use of different types of quality control materials are explained.