Overview of PNAEQ clinical participants during COVID-19 pandemic

External Quality Assessment Schemes are a crucial tool to identify and evaluate laboratory performance. COVID 19 pandemic poses a challenge for laboratories, since they own a critical role in the diagnosis, prognosis and therapeutic monitoring The laboratory practice in stressful conditions may increase errors due to several factors. The main objective of this study was to evaluate and compare the performance of clinical participants in Portuguese External Quality Assessment Programme (PNAEQ) during the pandemic period (2020) and previous schemes (2019 or 2018) for different parameters of Haematology Chemistry Endocrinology Immunology and Microbiology

Keywords

Avaliação Externa da Qualidade AEQ Programa Nacional de Avaliação Externa da Qualidade PNAEQ COVID-19 Pandemic External Quality Assessment Schemes EQA Portuguese External Quality Assessment Programme