JCTLM Members’ and Stakeholders’ meeting and Workshop on 'EQA schemes elucidating the clinical suitability of laboratory results'

Organizing Committee

Aim of the meeting

The JCTLM Members’ and Stakeholders’ Meeting and Workshop on “EQA schemes elucidating the clinical suitability of laboratory results” will be held at the BIPM on Monday 4 and Tuesday 5 December 2023. The biennial meeting of the Members and Stakeholders will start with a morning session on JCTLM update and report on 4 December and will be followed by a Workshop to explore the relationship between proficiency testing/external quality assurance (EQA) and traceability. A range of experts will describe the current quality of laboratory assays and how EQA schemes can identify where improvement in assays is needed. The theme of this Workshop is how EQA schemes can improve and provide a more helpful assessment of this quality.

The meeting will be held as an hybrid meeting and registration is open.

Participation

The workshop is open to all individuals and groups with an interest in traceability and method standardization or harmonization. These include laboratory medicine specialists, EQA providers, IVD manufacturers, and national metrology institutes. Participants will be able to share with peers and experts and access the Workshop presentation.

Anticipated outcomes

Proficiency testing monitors the traceability of measurement results without being a part of the traceability hierarchies themselves. The workshop provides an understanding of the roles of proficiency testing in maintaining traceability, its challenges, and current developments in elucidating the clinical suitability of laboratory results.

JCTLM Update and Executive Report

• Monday 4 December - morning

Workshop on EQA schemes elucidating the clinical suitability of laboratory results

• Monday 4 December (afternoon) and Tuesday 5 December

• Session 1 - Current status of and responsibility for traceability in laboratory medicine
  Chair: Rita Horvath

1. How good are we now? Heidi Berghäll
2. How good do we need to be? Rita Horvath
3. Who is responsible: labs, manufacturers, regulators? Marianela Perez-Torres

• Session 2 - EQA principles, practice, and practical use
  Chair: Greg Miller

4. Should individual labs adjust results to make them traceable or leave this to manufacturers. What about a lab wanting to align instruments from different suppliers? Greg Miller
5. Challenges in assessing traceability of measurement results with EQA materials -commutability. Sverre Sandberg
6. Setting an APS – the details and the process + should the same APS be used in all settings. Graham Jones
7. EQA using patient medians to monitor harmonization and standardization. Anne Solsvik

• Session 3 - EQA principles, practice, and practical use
  Chair : Piet Meijer

8. Aggregating data from different EQA-schemes using common concepts, terms, and codes for measuring systems, measurands, reagents and reagents lots. Anthony Killeen
9. Common program structure – reporting. David Ducroq
10. EQA schemes working together. Wim Coucke

• Session 4 - The role of EQA in quality systems
  Chair : Mauro Panteghini

11. The role of certification schemes. Hubert Vesper
12. Higher order EQA schemes. Anja Kessler
13. Can EQA with non-commutable material be combined with EQA with commutable material to support traceability assessment? Anne Stavelin

• Session 5 – The driving forces of traceability in laboratory medicine and in EQA
  Chair : Sverre Sandberg

14. How is EQA financed? Tony Badrick
15. Can financing systems be used to catalyse the development of EQA schemes to assess metrological traceability of results. Sverre Sandberg
16. What should accreditation bodies ask for? Gary Horowitz
17. The benefits of standardised results (and the risks of non-standardised results). Mauro Panteghini
18. How can Regulatory EQA schemes support traceability. Solveig Linko