The concept of traceability and its impact to laboratory medicine

Technopath are proud to sponsor this educational webinar, delivered by Professor Mario Plebani and hosted by The Pathologist.

Presenter: Prof. Mario Plebani
Professor of Clinical Biochemistry and Clinical Molecular Biology at the School of Medicine, University of Padova

Chief of the Department of Laboratory Medicine at the University-Hospital of Padova, Italy. Prof. Plebani is also dean of the university’s medical school and director of its postgraduate course of clinical pathology and clinical biochemistry. He served as president of the International Society of Enzymology for four years, president of the Italian Society of Clinical Biochemistry and Molecular Clinical Biology for five years, and president of the Federation of Italian Societies of Laboratory Medicine for three years. Prof. Plebani is editor-in-chief of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine and co-editor-in-chief of Diagnosis. He serves on the editorial boards of seven journals and as a referee for 17 more. He has published 1100 papers, more than 900 abstracts, 20 books, and 50 book chapters.

Webinar Description

The concept of traceability in laboratory medicine usually concerns the analytical phase. In particular, traceability to a common reference, ideally up to the International System of Units [SI], ensures a high quality and long-term equivalence of measurement results obtained by different measuring systems. The traceability of measurement results is achieved by an unbroken sequence of calibrations, each contributing to the uncertainty of results of clinical samples (CS). Reference materials (RMs) have been described as one of the six pillars of the “temple of laboratory standardization”, together with other classical key elements of the reference measurement system (i.e. higher order reference procedures and reference laboratories performing them), the implementation of analytical quality control programs that meet metrological criteria, and the establishment of targets for uncertainty and error of measurement that are fit for purpose. However, traceability strongly affects the post-analytical phase particularly regarding the definition of traceable reference intervals and decision limits, and the pre-analytical phase. In fact, without good quality samples and a valuable chain between patient identification, blood collection and sample transportation, even a standardized method does not allow to achieve clinically reliable and accurate results.

Key Learning Objectives:

• Concepts of Traceability in the Clinical Laboratory
• Impact of Traceability on laboratory quality
• Contributing factors to Traceability in the clinical laboratory

Who Should Attend:

• Clinical, hospital, and reference laboratory stakeholders.
• Laboratory directors, laboratory managers, quality managers.
• Clinical laboratory scientists and technicians.