Reference materials and reference measurement systems in laboratory medicine. Harmonization of nomenclature and definitions in reference measurement systems.

Reliability of clinical laboratory results is obtained through quality assurance in both their production and transmission. The former involves a reference measurement system of reference materials and reference measurement procedures with metrological and statistical verification of results. The latter requires that sender and receiver have access to a common terminology. Thus, two data banks are required. A plurilingual systematic vocabulary related to the reference measurement system, giving concepts with terms and definitions concerning measurement standards, reference measurement procedures, internal quality control, external quality assessment, probability and statistics-mainly based on existing authoritative publications. The material should be processed by standard scientific terminological procedure and offered to pertinent organizations and specialists for comment before finalization and authorization. A multilingual collection of systematic names for properties examined by the branches of Laboratory Medicine, such as clinical chemistry, clinical immunology, clinical microbiology, clinical pharmacology, haematology and blood banking, and histochemistry and cytology. The database should function as a reference to consultation and as a link in the transmission of data between local laboratory "dialects". This should be based on the ongoing comprehensive IUPAC/IFCC project for forming names in collaboration with relevant scientific organisations and area specialists. The relational data base including "run-time" software would be accessed by e-mail (gopher or other storage medium).