Medically relevant laboratory-performance goals: a listing of the complexities and a call for action.

This 1992 Clinical Chemistry Forum asks if accuracy and precision goals for the laboratory can be specified by reference to medical requirements, which are a function of the total laboratory testing process as well as the needs of patients, clinicians, and societal institutions. Furthermore, medical decisions and decisions about medical requirements must be made in situations of uncertainty and thus are subject to predictable cognitive errors. The interaction of all these factors must be considered by patients, laboratorians, and clinicians to identify practical and effective performance goals. Pathologists and clinical chemists are uniquely trained to identify thoughtful clinicians who are knowledgeable in quantitative judgment to participate in this goal-setting endeavor. It is time for these parties to accumulate the available data and engage in the synthesis of effective performance goals.