Rachel Marrington
Dr. Rachel Marrington is a Consultant Clinical Scientist and has been part of Birmingham Quality since 2016. Prior to working in EQA Rachel spent 12 years working in a large Clinical Biochemistry/Blood Sciences laboratory and gained her FRCPath in 2010.
Rachel is the organiser of a number of EQA Schemes, sits on many committees and is a founder member of the Patient Focused Laboratory Medicine (PFLM) Group and is passionate about raising awareness of all areas of quality which impact patients. She believes that there is still a lot that we, as a laboratory community can do, to improve patient care in this area.
Aiheet
Patient-Centric External Quality Assessment: From Analytical Performance to Clinical Impact
This presentation explores the evolution of External Quality Assessment (EQA) from assessing analytical accuracy to evaluating the impact of laboratory results on clinical decision-making through patient-centric approaches. Patient-centric EQA uses realistic clinical scenarios to assess not only analytical performance but also the influence of laboratory results on patient management.
Examples from the Acute and Chronic Kidney Disease Scheme (Birmingham Quality) will demonstrate how patient cases are used alongside EQA specimens to evaluate the impact of assay variation in creatinine measurement on the diagnosis and staging of Acute Kidney Injury (AKI). By following simulated patient journeys across sequential distributions, the scheme reflects the longitudinal nature of clinical care and assesses the real-world consequences of analytical variation.
The presentation will also examine the Interpretative Comments Scheme, which evaluates the quality, consistency and clinical relevance of comments provided in response to patient-based laboratory scenarios.
These exercises enable participants to benchmark reporting practices, identify knowledge gaps and support targeted education and professional development.
Integrating analytical and interpretative EQA enhances the educational value of EQA programmes while strengthening both analytical quality and post-analytical decision support.
Together, these approaches assess the entire testing pathway, helping laboratories understand not only whether a result is analytically correct, but also whether it supports appropriate clinical decisions and optimal patient outcomes.