Piedmont region (Italy): setting quality standards and testing.

In this report we describe the two years (1991-1992) EQA programmes organized by the health committee of the Piedmont region (Italy). This programme was mandatory for all public and private laboratories. The parameters analysed were: PT and APTT (for coagulation); Hb, RBC, WBC, platelets and MCV (for haematology); glucose, urea, creatinine, total proteins, cholesterol, uric acid, triglycerides, AST, ALT, LDH, GGT, amylase, alkaline phosphatase, sodium, potassium, calcium, chloride, phosphorus and iron (for clinical chemistry). For haematology, the comparison between the first and the second year shows a significant decrease of imprecision, especially for platelets, WBC and MCV.