Invitation letter
This is an invitation to participate in a European survey among hospital and private laboratories regarding pre-analytical practices on the routine coagulation analyses APTT, PT/INR and Fibrinogen. Coagulation analyses are especially prone to pre-analytical interference, and it is therefore important to focus on these issues to avoid erroneous results.
It is important that this letter is given to the person in charge of the routine coagulation analyses, and that this person takes the responsibility for filling in the questionnaire. Point-of-care (POCT) instruments should not be included.
Please follow the link underneath and answer some questions about how you would handle blood sampling, processing, transportation and storage of the sample material when one or more of the routine coagulation analyses are requested. If you fill in the questionnaire and provide your email address, you will receive a feedback report as well as an update on recommendations on pre-analytical issues for coagulation analyses. Your email address will not be used for other purposes.
The questionnaire should be answered within 7 days, and it will take about 15 minutes to complete.
Questionanaire: Pre-analytical paractices on routine coagulation testing.
The aim of the survey is to highlight how laboratories in different European countries handle pre-analytical issues regarding coagulation testing.
This pre-analytical program is organised by the Hemostasis Working Group of the European Organisation for External Quality Assurance Providers in Laboratory Medicine (EQALM) and is supported by your national EQA provider, the Irish External Quality Assessment Scheme (IEQAS).
On behalf of the project group: Gunn BB Kristensen, Norwegian Clinical Chemistry EQA Program (NKK).
Four surveys were carried out to investigate the feasibility of introducing and EQA scheme for Irish laboratories. Results from the first two were reported at IEQAS Conference 2006. Two further samples were later distributed, in 2007 and 2008. It was concluded that the sample size for each analyser group was not large enough for a successful routine IEQAS-operated scheme. IEQAS now offers Labquality coagulation EQA schemes.
The aim of this survey was to determine the level of coagulation testing in these laboratories as well as the analysers and reagents in use.