Quality control for the clinical laboratory.

Quality control is a management discipline by which laboratories assure the validity of their results for bedside management of patients. The thrust of quality control has been the laboratory's efforts at improving analytic variability associated with the measurement process. Through increasing emphasis on automation and participation in laboratory improvement programs, laboratory imprecision and inaccuracy have decreased over the past 15 years. Recent advances in the practice of quality control include use of new types of quality control materials, changing concepts of what is out of control, and the introduction of microcomputer applications.