title: Medical laboratory audit: performance of twelve selected laboratories in metropolitan Enugu, Nigeria.
abstract: The abilities of 12 medical diagnostic laboratories situated in Enugu metropolis to estimate haemoglobin concentration accurately and precisely, by the cyanmethaemoglobin photometric method, were assessed. Nine (75%) of these laboratories showed good precision. Three (25%) were imprecise. As assessed by variance index (VI), only 5 (8.3%) of the entire haemoglobin results obtained from the participating laboratories showed good excellent accuracy (VI = 0 < or = 0.5). Conversely, 16 (26.7%), 9 (15%) and 30 (50%) of the entire haemoglobin results were satisfactory (VI > 0.5 - 1), acceptable (VI > 1 - 2) and rejectable (VI > 2) respectively. Furthermore, only 4 (33.3%) of the laboratories produced haemoglobin results that were both accurate and precise. Non-compliance with desirable practices that ensure quality of laboratory determinations were observed as possible contributing factor to this rather poor performance. The latter underscores the need for institution of external quality control laboratories in Nigeria.
authors.affiliation: Department of Haematology and Immunology, University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu.
authors.forename: C C
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Hedo
authors.forename: R C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Chukwurah
mesh_terms: D006454:Hemoglobins / Q000032:analysis*; D006801:Humans; D007753:Laboratories / Q000592:standards*; D008485:Medical Audit; D009549:Nigeria; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014505:Urban Population
chemical_list: D006454:Hemoglobins