Errors in laboratory medicine: The role of quality indicators

Errors in It's our profession to know all the details of testing and instrumentation and quality control. It's our profession to assure that test results are correct. Improvements need not be only at "pre" or "post" or "analytical" - it should be at all three stages, as the consequence of error in any of the stage is the same: poor patient care. No error is worse than the other. We must make efforts on all fronts. Even if this means making small improvements in each area, a unified improvement effort will achieve better test results and better patient care than narrow efforts in either the pre-, post- or analytical area. To have a uniform consensus, the laboratories should have certain quality indicators to have control over the procedures that tend to generate errors.