I signed up to the Westgard QC
newsletter today having stumbled across their website. On it I found a rather
interesting little essay on the measurement of uncertainty.
I’ve always known that when I repeat an
assay I won’t get “exactly” the same result, but I will get a result which is “about
the same” but how much “about” is acceptable?
For example… “A patient report shows
serum rhubarb results on two samples collected a week apart as 3.1 mmol/L and
3.3 mmol/L; upper reference value: 3.0 mmol/L. The clinician asks the
laboratory: Is the first result definitely high and is the second result really
higher than the first? The laboratory can’t answer without having some
quantitative knowledge about the measurement uncertainty associated with each
of the results”
You can read the essay by clicking here.
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