Quality assurance, control and assessment

Abstract

The appraisal of quality has a considerable impact on analytical laboratories. Laboratories have to manage the quality of their services and to convince clients that the advocated level of quality is attained and maintained. Increasingly, accreditation is demanded or used as evidence of reliability. At present there are American and European Standards (ISO 25 and EN 45001) that describe how a laboratory ought to be organized in order to manage the quality of its results. These Standards form the basis for accreditation of analytical laboratories. Terms used frequently are ‘quality assurance’ and ‘quality control’. Quality assurance is a wider term, which includes both quality control and quality assessment.