Choosing quality-control systems to detect maximum clinically allowable analytical errors.

Critical systematic and random analytical errors for 17 common clinical chemical components were estimated from published values for analytical imprecision, biological variation, and "medically important changes." Appropriate quality-control systems for these analytes are discussed on the basis of power considerations. The simple rule 1(3)s, with one control per run, is minimally sufficient for the analytes (about one quarter of those considered here) for which the magnitude of critical error is at least 3 analytical standard deviations. The more powerful rule 1(2)s, with one control per run, is the minimal requirement for analytes for which critical errors are about 2 analytical standard deviations; these are about half the remaining analytes. Greater power values are achieved by using multiple rules based on several controls per run. In general, this study does not support the view put forward by some authors that the quality-control rules in use today are too restrictive.