Influence of geography on the performance of quality control testing in the Australian Government's point of care testing in general practice trial

Objective: To investigate the influence of geography on quality control (QC) testing in the point of care testing (PoCT) in general practice trial. Design and methods: Within-practice imprecision for QC testing for HbA1c, urine albumin:creatinine ratio, lipids and international normalised ratio was calculated for each geographic region. Results: There was no significant difference between the region of testing and within-practice imprecision, except for triglyceride and HDL cholesterol. Conclusions: PoCT was conducted to an equivalent analytical standard across geographic regions. (C) 2009 The Canadian Society of Clinical Chemists. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.