External Quality Assessment Schemes in Latin America.

As professionals of the clinical laboratory we must generate clinically useful results, products and services for the patients' health care. Laboratories must participate in one or more proficiency testing (PT) or external quality assessment (EQA) programs as part of routine quality assurance. Nevertheless participating per se is not enough. There are critical factors to take into consideration when selecting a PT or EQA providers. In most cases the survey's providers offer assigned values obtained from consensus of results provided by the participants for comparison, it is critical to evaluate consistency of the comparison group before interpretation and decision-making.