• Dawn E Corl, Tom S Yin, Andrew N Hoofnagle, Joanne D Whitney, Irl B Hirsch, and Brent E Wisse.
• Harborview Medical Center Department of Laboratory Medicine, University of Washington Medical Centers, Seattle, WA Clinical Chemistry and Clinical Immunology at the University of Washington School of Nursing, University of Washington University of Washington School of Medicine Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism at the University of Washington.
• J Healthc Qual. 2011 May 17.

AbstractAnalyze the effectiveness of mandated point-of-care (POC) blood glucose (BG) meter quality control (QC) testing. All POC BG QC tests were analyzed to evaluate operator and strip/meter error rates and institutional cost. POC BG QC test failure (17/103,580 over 24 months) was low and no meters failed subsequent linearity testing. Examining individual QC measures shows that operator error occurs frequently and total error rate is related to QC familiarity (>50 QC tests/month, 2.4%; <50 QC tests/month, 3.8%, p<.001). Even among the most competent operators, strip/meter error (1.2 ± 0.3%) accounted for 50% of total error. Compared with manufacturer- recommended QC testing, Joint Commission mandated POC BG QC testing during 2008/2009 incurred excess costs of approximately US$127,000. POC BG meter failure within current guidelines is rare and does not justify the cost of daily QC testing. Frequent QC testing can identify operators needing retraining in POC testing. Strip/meter QC errors are common, are not prevented by current QC testing standards, and may contribute to clinical errors.© 2011 National Association for Healthcare Quality.

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