Errors in clinical laboratories or errors in laboratory ...

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Clin Chem Lab Med 2006;44(6):750 759 2006 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin New York. DOI in press - uncorrected proofReviewErrors in clinical laboratories or Errors in laboratorymedicine?Mario Plebani*Department of laboratory Medicine, UniversityHospital of Padova and Center of BiomedicalResearch, Castelfranco Veneto, ItalyAbstractLaboratory testing is a highly complex process and,although laboratory services are relatively safe, theyare not as safe as they could or should be. Clinicallaboratories have long focused their attention onquality control methods and quality assessment pro-grams dealing with analytical aspects of testing. How-ever, a growing body of evidence accumulated inrecent decades demonstrates that quality in clinicallaboratories cannot be assured by merely focusing onpurely analytical aspects.

752 Plebani: Errors in clinical laboratories or errors in laboratory medicine? Article in press - uncorrected proof Figure 1 Types and rates of error in the three stages of the laboratory testing process (modified from reference 3).

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