Results were analysed for 9 KPI reports (December 2006 – December 2010) for Australian laboratories. For this period there were 5 – 18 laboratories, that had an All Analytes KPI of 0.03 or less (i.e. bottom 3%) and 3 – 12 laboratories that had an All Analytes KPI of 0.04 – 0.05. For the Indicator Analytes KPI 6 – 15 laboratories had a KPI of 0.03 or less and 5 – 10 laboratories had a KPI of 0.04 – 0.05.
Participation Indicators include the percentage of results submitted, submitted late or amended. Throughout the study period up to 12 laboratories submitted less than 50% of survey results and up to 46 laboratories submitted less than 80% of survey results.
Over the 4.5 year study period up to 15 laboratories submitted more than 50% of survey results late and throughout the same period there were approximately 25% of Australian laboratories that returned results late more than 10% of the time.
Zero to two laboratories amended more than 20% of results. Twenty‐one to forty‐nine laboratories amended more than 5% of results in a six month KPI period.
A Performance Review Committee was established and results were reviewed if the All Analytes or Indicator Analytes KPI had been 0.03 or lower twice over the study period. KPI and End‐of‐cycle reports were reviewed for 23 laboratories. No Australian diagnostic laboratory was considered to be systemically poorly performing over the study period.
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