Inter–laboratory precision and relative accuracy of mechanised and nonmechanised systems for blood gas analysis

Introduction In recent years, quality control has been extended to an everincreasing number of biochemical parameters. Its application to blood-gas analysis is complicated by two main factors: the need for reliable, reproducible quality control materials and the variability of calibration standards among the different clinical departments using blood gas apparatus ]. Moreover, automatic analysers are becoming increasingly sophisticated and complex, which may simplify handling but inevitably increases the risk of error. The purpose of the present study was to compare automatic and non automatic systems for precision and accuracy on the strength of the results of an inter-laboratory quality control survey.