From its inception in 1990, RIQAS (Randox International Quality Assessment Scheme) has developed into one of the world’s largest global External Quality Assessment (EQA / Proficiency Testing (PT) schemes serving over 45,000 participants in more than 133 countries. Our main aim is to help clinical laboratories meet their quality requirements and most importantly, provide the best possible patient care.
Comprising over 360 parameters in 33 comprehensive External Quality Control programmes, RIQAS can streamline EQA by significantly reducing the number of individual programmes required. Consolidation in this way is guaranteed to save even the most demanding laboratories both precious time and money. With fewer samples to prepare, fewer reports to interpret and fewer kits to store the effect on productivity and efficiency is unrivalled.
External Quality Assessment (EQA) sometimes referred to as Proficiency Testing (PT) is an essential aspect of any laboratory operation providing a means of assessing analytical performance compared to other laboratories using the same method and instrument.
EQA is designed to retrospectively monitor laboratory performance using ‘blind’ samples analysed as if they were patient samples. EQA results are submitted to the scheme organiser on a regular basis for statistical analysis; each individual laboratory will then receive a report comparing their performance to others participating in the same programme.