30 Seconds of Info from Paul Blackney – Principal Consultant: QAQC – Always evaluate the cause of any Certified Reference Material assay result outside of the certified three standard deviation grade range

Always evaluate the cause of any Certified Reference Material (CRM) assay result outside of the certified three standard deviation grade range:  Statistically, less than three in each 1,000 results should be outside this range, making this protocol a useful tool for identifying when to investigate further.  Some QC protocols dictate that investigations are undertaken if a CRM assay result lies outside of the certified two standard deviation grade range.  This protocol will leads to a lot of misplaced effort as in excess of 4% of all results should legitimately be outside this range.  If significantly more than 4% of the assay results lie outside of the two standard deviation range, then further investigation is warranted.

This week’s 30 Seconds of Info comes from Paul Blackney – Principal Consultant. pblackney@snowdenoptiro.com