Quality Assurance in the laboratory and the application of ISO/IEC 17025 comprise an evident trend in the analytical world. Our AQAC was therefore developed based on the ideology of QA for results and to encourage laboratories to meet the best ‘‘state-of-the-art’’ levels.

To achieve these ideals, the AQAC starts with validation, demonstrating that the method performed provides evidence that it is fit for the purpose for which it is to be used and showing the strengths and the weaknesses of the methodology used.

After validation, the second step leads to the measurement of uncertainty, characterizing the dispersion of the quantity values being attributed to a measurand with a certain level of confidence. In the third and last step, QC demonstrates that the method can still provide reliable results – in other words, it is an ongoing validation of the method – and QC produces new data routinely to adjust the uncertainty measurements.

The AQAC is therefore an unending circle, and analyses can be performed in the laboratory with assurance of the results.

This AQAC can be applied as a powerful quality instrument in all kinds of laboratories. For those laboratories that have a formal quality system [e.g., ISO/IEC 17025 or GLP (which address some requirements of the Cycle)] (i.e. routine laboratories, laboratories involved in official controls, and others), the AQAC will work in conjunction with these international standards to produce continuous improvements in the quality of results.

Also, this AQAC supports the traceability of results for a laboratory that does not have a formal quality system (i.e. applied research laboratories or basic analytical research laboratories), being an alternative quality tool standardized for research laboratories (perhaps with the future possibility of systematic accreditation).

References

OLIVARES, Igor Renato Bertoni. Laboratory Quality Management. 1. ed. Campinas - SP: Editora Átomo, 2016. 154p