Traceability in Laboratory Medicine: Celebrating World Metrology Day

World Metrology Day | 20 May 2021 | Measurement for Health

 

 

Reliable measurements are the basis for many aspects of our daily lives. They support international trade, promote the safe and reliable use of new technologies across virtually all sectors, and underpin critical legislation.

To establish the mutual recognition of calibrations, measurements and test certificates, National Metrology Institutes (NMIs) and Designated Institutes (DIs) are set up to compare their measurement capabilities in the so-called key comparisons of the Consultative Committees of the Comité International de Poids et Mesures (CIPM).

This year, World Metrology Day aims to raise awareness of the importance of measurements for health. Medical diagnostics indeed depend on accurate, informative, comparable, and timely measurement results.

 

 

Within medical laboratories, the testing and examination of patient samples is usually accompanied by rigorous quality assessments – where controls are often put in place to minimise diagnostics errors. However, it still remains difficult to ensure that identical results are returned across varying diagnostic tests and locations.

As a result, global metrology institutions today continue to focus on improving this very aspect of measurement comparability by developing new and innovative reference materials and reference measurement procedures for the medical field.

Covering the broad range of diagnostic tests requires joint work between all NMIs and DIs. The EMN Trace Lab Med strives to coordinate the work of European NMIs and DIs to serve the needs of the community.

 

Find out more...

If you want to learn more about the EMN, the activities of the European NMIs and DIs, and the importance of metrological traceability in laboratory medicine, we invite you to join us in celebrating World Metrology Day 2021, ‘Measurements for Health’:

 

 

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