X-Bar-N analysis…
such a brilliant idea in theory. Leaving out all the technicalities, you take the
average value of twenty analytes and record it. You then take the average value
of the next twenty, and the next twenty and because you are dealing with
patients from the same population, the average value should remain pretty much
unchanged.
Therefore
if the average value does noticeably change, then (because you are dealing
with the same population), your analyser is poggered.
However in
practice you aren’t dealing with patients from the same population. The day
kicks off with samples from the haemato-oncology ward. Then there’s a wodge of
pre-operative work. Then the outpatient oncology stuff arrives. Then the
ante-natal clinic. And you can see differences between these populations by
looking at the X-Bar-N charts.
There’s
probably a window of about three to four hours in the afternoon when the
workload is a genuine mix of patients…
Consequently
I chuckled when I saw this picture on Facebook.
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